


Wind-Songs in the Pines

by evergreen_on_the_horizon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 1800s Avatar, Alternate Universe, Anne of Green Gables References, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Idiots in Love, Inspired by Anne of Green Gables, Inspired by Novel, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Katara Needs a Hug, Katara has a lot of angst, Katara is Anne, Minor Mai/Zuko, Sokka & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, Sokka and Zuko are PALS, Stubborn Katara (Avatar), Suki is the best Diana, Ty Lee is Ruby Gillis and I can't stop, Unrequited Love, What Have I Done, Zuko is Gilbert, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, this is everything i never knew i wanted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26257888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evergreen_on_the_horizon/pseuds/evergreen_on_the_horizon
Summary: Life on idyllic Kyoshi Island hasn't been the same for Katara since her mother passed away. Still, she has high hopes for the future: college, a career, world travel... Confident in her intelligence and armed with a keen sense of confidence, Katara aims to accomplish all of this and more. But always on the periphery is Zuko with his knife-sharp intelligence and his knack for showing up whenever there's trouble. Katara knows what he represents, and it's nothing that bodes well for her plans.___Or, an Anne of Green Gables-inspired AU that nobody asked for but I really wanted.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 70
Kudos: 116





	1. Slates and Ribbons

Katara stares across the creek at the schoolhouse, her heart a lead weight in her chest and her palms sweaty where they grip her lunch pail and her books. Sokka has run ahead of her the whole way here, an eager smile on his face so bright it rivals the morning sun. She’s shouted after him, warned him that he is getting dust on his trousers, that he will arrive for their first day of school unkempt and sweaty. She doesn’t know how he’s smiling. Doesn’t know how the brightness of the late-summer sun doesn’t sit oddly with him the way it does with her. Then again, he’d had the courage to come back to school soon after the funeral. Too soon, she thought. Katara hadn’t had the courage to come back at all. It had taken the remainder of winter, all of spring, and the duration of summer for her to finally give in to Father’s gentle encouragements and come back to school. She’d kept up with her studies at home, of course, not wanting to fall behind. She’d been considered the brightest student in school last year before everything. She just hadn’t been able to leave the house, hadn’t been able to leave _Father_ , really.

It had taken all of Katara’s willpower not to run back home this morning when she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder to see the sad smile on her father’s face as he waved goodbye. She wasn’t sure he was ready to be alone. And she wasn’t entirely certain that she was ready to step into a world without her mother.

Last year, it had been easy to go tearing across the little bridge, to giggle with her friends, to dive headfirst into her studies. The thought of joining in with the gaggle of chattering girls outside the schoolhouse today, though, makes her heart flop uneasily. The simple breakfast Gran Gran had made for their little family roils in her stomach. She shouldn’t be afraid, she knows. She’s grown up with all of these children. Most of them would never make her feel poorly intentionally. Three quarters of a year without her mother, though, have exposed her to the cruel realities of pitying smiles on the faces of well-meaning neighbors. Those smiles are a knife to the chest and Katara just isn’t sure she can handle those smiles from her peers.

She’s about to turn on her boot heel and make for home when a warm hand lands on her shoulder. She looks from the pale, slender fingers up into the familiar grey eyes of the only person she’d be happy to see in this moment.

“Suki.”

The other girl squeezes her shoulder and smiles. There is a fortifying strength twinkling in her eyes and nothing in her smile that even resembles pity. Katara feels one of the knots her stomach has tied itself into loosen a fraction. Suki is genuinely happy to see her. And so long as she has Suki today, she will be able to stumble through in the knowledge that her dearest friend will not let her down.

“I am _so_ glad to see you,” Suki says. She grabs Katara’s wrist and squeezes gently before beginning to tug her toward the bridge. “We have a new teacher this year and Ty Lee says he’s old and ornery and just _awful_. He’s boarding at her house.”

Katara listens intently as their boots clomp over the bridge, Suki’s voice drowning out the bubble of the creek. She’s grateful for the chatter. Suki won’t expect her to respond and that means she has time to take several steadying breaths. Across the schoolyard, Sokka is laughing loudly with a group of boys and she starts to feel her blue eyes brim over unexpectedly. It’s so _easy_ for him, she thinks. How is it so easy? It takes her a moment to register that Suki is guiding her towards the girls and she pulls up short.

Suki turns to look at her, eyes questioning under her auburn bangs.

“Suki, I...” Katara chokes out. Her eyes start to water more. A tear leaks out of her left eye and down her cheek. “I’m not... I can’t...”

“You aren’t ready for big groups yet,” Suki says understandingly and Katara nods before sniffing her tears back and scrubbing her her cheek with the back of her hand. Suki moves in front of Katara so the other girls can’t see her. “That’s okay. You can sit with me. Nobody else took your seat last year, you know. They knew I wouldn’t stand for it. So it’s still all yours.”

Katara gives her dearest friend a watery smile and sniffs once more to clear the tears from her eyes. Suki sets her lunch pail down on the ground, careful to avoid the muddy bank of the creek. She reaches out with a gentle hand and pulls Katara’s long, dark braid over her shoulder. Together, they stare at the navy blue ribbon that Gran Gran had tied at the end of it this morning. Its gold embroidery shimmers in the bright morning sun.

“It was Mother’s,” Katara offers up, her voice quiet, reverential.

Suki nods. “They never leave us, you know,” she replies. Katara knows Suki is thinking of the little knot of brown hair in the locket around her own neck, of the little sister lost too young. She juggles her lunch pail and books with one hand so she can reach out and grasp Suki’s free hand with her own. When Suki’s eyes meet hers, Katara says, “Thank you,” as earnestly as she can. They exchange rueful smiles.

The school bell rings and Suki bends to pick up her lunch pail. She stands resolutely next to Katara who takes another deep breath before pressing forward. They enter the schoolhouse at the back of the crush of students. The old, stern-faced schoolmaster stands at the front of the room, his mouth pulled into a severe frown under his white mustache. The graveness in his face prevents students from dawdling too long, so nobody pauses to talk to Katara, other than to toss her a passing hello. She and Suki find a desk across the aisle and one seat up from Sokka and a dark haired boy with a scarred eye that she doesn’t know. Both boys are sniggering at something and Katara frowns. She hadn’t known Sokka made a new friend, let alone with someone who must be new to their little town. Not wanting to get caught staring, she busies herself with organizing her supplies.

“Who is my brother sitting with?” she whispers to Suki.

“That’s Zuko Himura,” Suki mutters back.

“I don’t recognize him.”

“No, you wouldn’t. He started school in the spring term while you were gone. He’s two years older than us, but he missed some schooling before he moved here. That’s why he sits with your brother. I think he lives with his uncle. He’s very smart. He might even be the smartest student in school.” The last sentence seems to be an after thought. Suki freezes as soon as it leaves her mouth. Her eyes flit to meet Katara’s face, but Katara has turned around to size the boy up.

He does look a bit older than Sokka, she thinks. Sixteen maybe instead of fifteen. His black hair is smoothly styled and the scar that twists his left eye adds an unapproachable quality to his otherwise fine-featured face. If Suki says he’s smart, he must be because Suki is no slouch when it comes to her studies. Sokka writes something on his slate and it makes Zuko Himura laugh. Katara finds it hard to believe that someone who can get along with her brother and has that nice of a smile is the smartest student in school, though.

She stares a moment too long. He senses it. Suddenly, his eyes meet hers and she isn’t quick enough to turn away. She feels her face flush. He offers her a small, uneasy smile that she doesn’t return, too disarmed by his golden gaze. His smile falters, the schoolmaster clears his throat, and Katara whips around in her seat, face bright red and wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole.

“My name,” the schoolmaster begins, “is Mr. Tatkik. I will be your teacher for this year. It is my understanding that your teacher last year was, perhaps, a bit _distracted_ and did not focus on your education as much as he should have.”

Katara and Suki exchange glances and bite back smirks, both thinking back to the teacher who had scandalized the town by successfully courting his eldest student after she’d matriculated and then marrying her over the summer.

“I will make myself very clear,” the schoolmaster continues, the half-bald globe of his head gleaming in the sunlight that falls through the window. “I am not here to coddle you or play games. Kyoshi School is in shambles and I have been brought in to fix it. You will be expected to work harder than ever before. Tomfoolery—” He pauses to level a glare and Katara just _knows_ it’s directed at Sokka. “Tomfoolery of any sort _will not be tolerated_.”

Mr. Tatkik takes a moment to stare down his long, slightly crooked nose at each of his students. When his eyes meet Katara’s, she raises her chin and doesn’t lower her gaze. A frown tugs at the thin line of his lips. A few more moments pass in silence as Me. Tatkik finishes assessing the class.

“We will dedicate mornings to arithmetic,” he says abruptly. “You are to begin working on the first five pages of your primer. You may work ahead,” here he seems to address only the boys, “if you dare to think you’re ready.” The way Suki shifts in her seat next to Katara tells her that she’s not imagining that Mr. Tatkik has looked directly at her when issuing the last part of that challenge.

There is a flurry of movement as students open their primers and find their chalk and slates. Katara delves into her geometry lesson, thankful that the work is somewhat familiar to her given Sokka’s closeness in age. The first three pages are easy. Katara breezes through the problems with ease. When she reaches the final problem on page four, though, she’s stumped. She erases the work on her slate several times, slowly growing more frustrated. Chancing a glance at Suki’s primer, she comes to find that her friend will be of no help as she is a page behind. Lost in thought, Katara doesn’t hear the clack of a piece of chalk hitting the floor, doesn’t hear it roll, and doesn’t feel it come to a stop against her boot.

_“Psst!”_ someone hisses, startling several students out of thought. _“Psst!”_

Mr. Tatkik looks up from where he is helping Aang Park with his lesson. “ _Silence_ ,” he commands.

Katara resolutely sets about testing another formula when she thinks she feels something touch the end of her braid once, twice… She looks at Suki whose hands are occupied with her work. When the feeling doesn’t recur, Katara turns back to her problem, certain that she’s on the brink—

_YANK._

The pull on her hair is more shocking than painful, but she feels the distinct slide of her mother’s ribbon slipping off the end of her braid. Katara stands up, slate in her hands, and whirls around. Vibrating with anger, she barely registers the questioning gold eyes of her offender before—

_CRACK!_

Sokka’s mouth drops open. Suki gasps. Katara is holding two halves of one slate in either of her hands, her braid is unraveling, and Zuko Himura is holding her mother’s ribbon between his long, pale fingers.

_“How. Dare. You?”_ she grinds out.

The boy with the golden eyes opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted by Mr. Tatkik before he can.

“Young lady!”

Oh no.

Katara feels the burn of indignant anger fade from her face. Her hands are trembling. Mr. Tatkik storms over, his footsteps heavy, his anger palpable. He wrenches the pieces of her slate from her hands and slams them down on the desk she shares with Suki. The rest of the students are eerily silent. Katara hears her breath rattling nervously in and out of her lungs, but she digs deep and finds the courage to meet his pale blue eyes.

She _will not cry_.

“What is your name?”

“Katara Narvak,” she says and her voice doesn’t waver.

“Narvak.” Mr. Tatkik’s scowl deepens. He points to the blackboard. “March.”

Katara smooths her navy blue dress and walks to the front off the room, head held high. She thinks she hears Sokka whisper her name. The teacher makes her stand before the whiteboard and watch as he writes, “Catara Narvak is a very rude girl,” on the board. Defiance swells in her chest, it bubbles and boils as he makes her turn to face the class, his sentence a blazing brand above her head. She feels her cheeks flush with shame and fights it down, clinging to the misspelling and the way this grumpy old man seems to have some sort of grudge against her.

“Return to your lessons,” he snarls to the class. Twenty heads bow over their primers and slates in tandem. Mr. Tatkik returns to helping Aang.

When Katara is certain the old schoolmaster isn’t paying attention, she changes the C to a K and stands a little bit taller. She pretends she doesn’t notice the way Zuko Himura keeps stealing glances at her.

* * *

When Mr. Tatkik releases the class for their first recess, Katara is made to be the last one out the door. Suki is waiting for her when she emerges and dives in for a hug.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Katara says and gets a mouthful of Suki’s hair. She raises a hand to her own hair and frowns. “Suki, do you have a spare ribbon?”

“No, but I’m sure we could easily ask Zuko—”

“Let’s not bother,” Katara interrupts her. “Since Sokka is _such good friends_ with him, I’m sure he’ll get it back for me.” She kneels down in the field far from where some of the other children are kicking a ball around and begins a search for a blade of grass that will be long and strong enough to suit her purposes.

“What are you doing?” Suki says.

“Improvising.”

The gray-eyed girl sounds exasperated now. “Katara—”

“No.”

“Katara!”

This time it’s Sokka. He’s sprinting across the schoolyard at her, Zuko Himura loping along in his wake. Katara senses more than sees Ty Lee Yoshida and Mai Xu watching interestedly near the schoolhouse door. Ty Lee has a very intense stare and a penchant for scandal, and wherever she is, Mai is bound to be.

“Katara!” Sokka calls again and she groans. He comes to a lurching halt near her little patch of grass. “What are you doing?”

“Improvising,” Suki says. “Apparently.”

“Katara, Zuko—”

“No,” Katara tells her brother. She plucks a piece of grass from the ground and lays it in her lap. She is sectioning her hair off when a pair of shiny black shoes shuffle into her line of sight. Above the shoes are neatly-pressed gray trousers. Katara doesn’t let her eyes wander past the hems.

“Hello,” the golden-eyed boy says. His voice is soft and somewhat gravelly. “Zuko here.”

Determined to ignore him, Katara sets about braiding her hair. When she attempts to wind the blade of grass around the end, it snaps. She lets out a little huff of frustration. That’s when he kneels in front of her, the embroidered ribbon draped across his palm like an olive branch. Katara freezes. She doesn’t look at him, but she can feel his eyes studying her face.

“I wanted to...” He trails off when Katara snatches the ribbon out of his hand, careful not to let her fingers brush his. When she rises to her feet, he follows suit half a heartbeat later. “I wanted to apologize,” he finally says.

There is a breath of silence. Katara raises her eyes to his, ice in her veins. Her mouth is a rigid, set line. She has half a mind to light into him here at recess, but she has a feeling that Mr. Tatkik will find out and punish her again. With no other recourse aside from civility (and _that_ , she knows, is not a possibility), Katara turns on her heel and stomps away, tying off her braid as she goes.

It doesn’t take long for Suki and Ty Lee to fall into step beside her. She vaguely wonders why Mai hasn’t drifted aimlessly along behind them. Not because Katara and Mai have ever been friends, of course, but because Mai, like all of the Xu children, has a secret need to be liked despite liking nobody herself.

“Oh, Katara!” Ty Lee is beside herself. “That was horribly mean!”

“Do you think so?” Katara says frostily. She comes to a stop and turns to look at her friends. Over their shoulders, she can see Zuko Himura gesticulating wildly to Sokka with one hand while Mai hangs on his other arm. Mai is glowering at Katara, her pretty face at complete odds with the cheery fabric of her red dress.

“Yes!” Ty Lee insists. “Zuko is such a nice boy!”

“Do nice boys pull strange girls’ hair in the middle of class?”

“Well… I…” Ty Lee is floundering as she bounces on her toes.

“I’m sure he had a reason,” Suki offers. “I’ve never seen him offend anyone before. He’s actually quite helpful most days. He helps teach the younger children their arithmetic sets.”

“It’s _so sweet_ ,” Ty Lee gushes.

“A lot of us weren’t so sure about him at first,” Suki says. “He seemed so…unapproachable. But Sokka really got along with him—“

“Oh, _good for Sokka!_ ” Katara says sarcastically.

“—and he’s actually quite nice,” Suki finishes, ignoring Katara.

“And _nice looking_.” Ty Lee giggles and casts a glance over her shoulder.

Katara throws her hands up in exasperation. “Nice looking doesn’t forgive imprudent behavior!” she shouts. She thinks she sees her brother and his new friend turn to look in her direction and lowers her voice. “Suki,” she says, “this is my _mother’s_ ribbon. What if he’d ripped it?”

Suki grabs Katara’s hand and squeezes. “I know,” she says. “I’m not saying what he did was right. I just think it might have been an accident. I’m positive he didn’t mean to.”

“Well,” Katara says loftily, “I think his behavior was _reprehensible_.” She makes sure he hears it across the yard. And when Mr. Tatkik rings the bell to call the students back into class, she marches herself right past Zuko Himura without deigning to glance his way.

* * *

Katara walks home with Suki that day, refusing to spend time with her traitorous brother who had spent the rest of the day being chummy with Zuko and even went so far as to tell her at lunch that he thought she was overreacting. When Katara and Suki emerge from the schoolhouse, Zuko is standing there, apart from the crowd of other boys, shuffling his feet in the dirt. He looks up as they approach and opens his mouth, the start of Katara’s name dying on his lips when she resolutely walks past him, head held high, arm linked with Suki’s.

Wisely, Suki says nothing further about the matter. Instead, she goads Katara into picking some of the wildflowers that line the side of the road and climbing a tree to pick some peach-apples. It’s nice not to think back on her troublesome day, Katara decides. The tall pines and birch trees funnel the distant ocean breeze down the road, providing respite from the hot afternoon sun. With her lunch pail brimming with blossoms and weighted down with a couple of spare peach-apples for Father and Gran Gran, Katara is content to dawdle with her friend. Underneath the hard-sought cheer is a growing feeling of dread about arriving home.

When the girls part, Suki headed for home up the neighboring hill, the dread begins to claw its way up Katara’s throat. Her feet kick up dust as they carry her down the road. The white fence of her family’s farm picks up not long after she breaks off from her friend. The fields of berries merge into orchards of moon-peach trees. Father is in the midst of it all and he waves to her from the back of his emu-horse. The hand Katara raises in response trembles, though she knows he won’t notice at this distance. She can see Gran Gran on the porch, sewing a new quilt.

And she knows, more acutely than she knows anything else, that there is no one else waiting beyond the doors of her home. Mother will not emerge from the kitchen with flour in her hair and the smell of vanilla on her hands. She will not have a smile for Katara and cannot ask about today’s lessons. Never again will she hug her daughter.

It is not until she has piled her school things into the empty chair on the porch, knelt down at Gran Gran’s feet, and laid her head in Gran Gran’s lap that Katara allows herself to cry.

And she does. Big, rolling tears that streak down her cheeks and stain Gran Gran’s skirts. She chokes out the story of the morning’s first lesson between her sniffles as Gran Gran strokes her braid. The unfairness of it all. How Mr. Tatkik seems to despise her for reasons she cannot fathom. How that awful, awful Himura boy had embarrassed her for the first and last time. Gran Gran offers no judgements of Katara’s behavior and says nothing about Zuko’s. She only listens.

“I’ll never, _ever_ forgive him, Gran Gran!” Katara says resolutely after her eyes have run dry.

Gran Gran hums dismissively. “Some injustices heal long before others, dear girl,” she says, her hand resting on the crown of Katara’s head now. “Time will give you the strength you need to carry on.”

Katara frowns. She has the distinct feeling that her grandmother isn’t remarking on Zuko Himura’s abhorrent behavior. But neither blue eyed woman says a word more on it. They sit in silence, watching the road until Sokka comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is inspired by Anne of Green Gables. A re-read of the novels prompted a realization of how similar my two favorite OTPs are and thus this story was born.
> 
> It's been so many years since I've written for a fandom. It might take me a while to work out the kinks and find a flow. I always appreciate hearing from my readers! Hope you'll stick with this until the end. :)


	2. Fortitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kudos and kind words of encouragement!

The week does not get any easier. Katara finds herself awake long into the nights, staring at the moon as she sits on her windowsill and dwelling mournfully on past conversations with her mother, whispered dreams of college and grand homes near the ocean filled with scads of trinkets cultivated during adventures around the world. Each morning, she wakes to the horrible ache in her heart that Mother had left when she passed. Each morning, she eats a breakfast prepared by Gran Gran (well-meaning Gran Gran who just can’t make biscuits the way Mother could). And each morning, Father kisses Katara’s cheek and thumps Sokka on the back as he hands them their lunch pails which have been packed lovingly by Gran Gran (whose no-nonsense attitude means she never slips little sweet treats into the pails the way Mother sometimes used to).

As much as she’s decided to despise Zuko Himura, Katara finds that family ties mean that she cannot bring herself to despise Sokka to the same degree. Her heart softens Tuesday morning when Sokka makes Zuko switch seats with him so that Katara’s braid is no longer open and vulnerable. It softens again later at morning recess when Sokka walks by and drops a folded piece of paper in her lap. When she unfolds it, she finds a poorly-drawn picture of Mr. Tatkik being drenched by an ocean wave and laughs until she nearly cries.

At lunch, Sokka attempts to goad Katara and Suki into picking gum off the trees at the end of the Yoshida property. Suki leaps to her feet readily, but a frown furrows Katara’s brow and she shakes her head.

“Sokka,” she says, “it’s not a good idea. There’s no guarantee we can get back to school before Mr. Tatkik. And you know he said we must all be in our seats when he returns for afternoon lessons.”

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Sokka says, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know almost everyone else is going. The three of us run faster than anyone else. And I’m positive that Zuko can keep up! We’ll all be back with time to spare.”

“Oh, no.” Katara shakes her head. “I _really_ won’t go if _he_ goes.”

Zuko Himura is leaning against the whitewashed wall of the schoolhouse, eyes watching their little trio intently. His hair is combed perfectly again and his trousers and shirt are immaculately pressed. Looking at him, Katara wouldn’t guess that he lives with his uncle. Only a mother expects her son to leave the house like that—Sokka was evidence enough the first few weeks after Mother’s death. Thankfully, Gran Gran had shown up and taken care of Sokka’s appearance with a quick, firm hand.

Mai Xu is standing closely to Zuko, her eyes fixed on his face as she speaks. She frequently reaches out to touch his arm despite the fact that she never elicits so much as a fleeting glance. Katara almost shakes her head. The boldness of the Xu family knows no bounds.

“Katara,” Sokka says, “if you don’t go, Mai _will_. And I don’t want to pick gum with a Xu. It’s bad enough when I have to help Tom-Tom with lessons!”

“You don’t have to pick gum at all, Sokka.”

He looks at her, arms akimbo and mouth sputtering with exasperation. He turns his eyes to Suki and she shrugs before sitting back down next to Katara.

“I’m sorry, Sokka,” she says. “I won’t go without Katara. I swore I would stick by her side.”

“You are _both_ ,” Sokka says darkly, “unbelievable.” He stalks back to Zuko and Mai, the latter of whom seems to conjure Ty Lee from thin air. The four of them walk away, Sokka and Zuko lost in conversation and seemingly oblivious to the girls trailing in their wake. They throw several glances at Katara and Suki.

Katara doesn’t fail to notice the way Suki watches the little group walk away, a small frown on her face. She reaches out to cover Suki’s hand where it rests in her lap, gripping a peach-apple with tight fingers.

“You don’t have to stay with me, Suki,” she says.

Suki shakes her head and turns to her with a bright smile. “What kind of friend would I be if I left you here alone?” she asks.

There are only a handful of students left in the schoolyard, the rest having gone off to pick gum long before now. Those that remain behind are younger and are not as likely to bother Katara. She has the feeling that her reluctance to participate has denied Suki something larger that she doesn’t quite grasp. They gray-eyed girl doesn’t complain, though, just bites into her peach-apple and drifts into thought before speaking again.

“He _is_ a nice person,” she says, not meeting Katara’s eyes. “He stopped by the store one day and noticed that mother was struggling to help our customers with heavier orders. I’m sure he had other things to do, but he just…stopped to help. For a long time! She was so grateful. The doctor told her she should be resting more.”

Katara fishes hunks of bread and cheese out of her lunch pail and she and Suki set about splitting the food between themselves. “How do you feel about another sibling?” she asks and Suki laughs.

“I just _know_ it’s going to be another sister,” she says. “Father is absolutely in denial. He’s always wanted a son, you know. But he’ll love her just the same.”

Katara grins. She’s as familiar with Suki’s sisters and Suki is with Sokka. Seven girls in total, each with starry gray eyes and hair in shades of auburn. After the loss of their second-eldest girl, Suki’s parents hadn’t had more children for a long time and then had been blessed with three sets of twins, all under school age, making Suki the much older captain of the little crew.

“Do you think you might end up with two more siblings?”

Suki groans. “Please,” she whines, “ _no_. I shall never have children if that’s the case, Katara.”

They laugh, a chorus of joy that floats up into the clouds. Katara revels in the moment. For the first time in a long time, she notes, grief does not haunt her smile. Still, she sighs and shakes her head, her braid swishing across the back of her dress.

“I _cannot_ forgive him, Suki,” she confesses. “The _humiliation_ …”

Suki hums. “And Mr. Tatkik is such a grumpy old bachelor,” she says, not commenting on Katara’s dogged dislike of Zuko. “It’s obvious he doesn’t think any of us girls should be in school, but something about you seems to have really soured his milk.”

“All the better to prove him wrong,” Katara says. “I’m determined to go to Ba Sing Se Academy and then earn my B.A. from a university. I’d quite like to be college educated, Suki.”

Suki grins. “It would be excellent,” she agrees.

A breeze carries the scent of the pines at the end of the Yoshida property across the schoolyard. It brings with it a question that niggles at the back of Katara’s mind and she attempts to resist the urge to voice it. Her inquisitive nature wins out in the end, though.

“His last name,” she says. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I don’t think we know _anyone_ with that name. You said he lives with his uncle?”

“Yes,” Suki says. She takes a final bite of her peach-apple and throws the pit across the stream. “He comes to pick up orders of tea for his uncle frequently. They live out at the Sozin farm.”

Katara can’t help the noise of surprise that jolts its way out of her throat. “His uncle is old Mr. Sozin?”

“It seems that way.”

“How odd that he would come to live with his mother’s brother.”

Suki frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Katara reasons, “Mr. Sozin isn’t his _father’s_ brother is he? They would share a last name.”

“Maybe there was no one on his father’s side to take him.”

Before the girls can speculate further, there is a clear shout of “Teacher!!” from the Yoshida property. They scramble to their feet, gathering scraps of food into their lunch pails before ushering the younger children into the schoolhouse. A herd of older students will soon come flooding across the footbridge and it’s best to beat the rush.

Inside, Katara kneels to help small Tom-Tom Xu tie his shoe. She takes a moment to help him clean the raspberry jam from his cheeks and he gives her a toothy smile. Sokka doesn’t like any of the Xu children, she knows, but Tom-Tom is still small. He has yet to develop the sense of entitlement his older siblings have or the heavy glare that Mai likes to level at other girls.

“Thank you!” he chirps.

“You are _most_ welcome,” Katara says, returning his smile.

Sokka’s laughter breaks across the room and she stands to see him barreling through the door with Zuko Himura who is laughing just as breathlessly. Any minute now, there will be a jostling for seats as the other students tumble into the school just ahead of Mr. Tatkik, but Katara is seized for a moment. Long enough to take in the way Zuko’s cheeks are flushed with exertion, to see how his smile creases the corners of his eyes and nearly eliminates the prominent scar on the left side of his face. Sokka pays no attention to his sister as he drops into his seat and flicks a small ball of paper at Suki who lets out a shriek of laughter and knocks it back. But Zuko _is_ paying attention, it seems.

The moment draws out longer. Somehow she is still rising to her feet, the smile she’d cast at Tom-Tom still on her face. And Zuko Himura’s eyes meet hers in a laughing flash of gold. His already wide smile seems to widen just a fraction more, exposing more of his white teeth, and Katara is _mortified_ to feel her heart give a funny squeeze in her chest. The moment thrums in the air between themlike a plucked harp string before the humiliation from the previous day rushes back over her soul, sending goosebumps across her flesh and a hot blush to her cheeks. Her smile slips from her face and she shoots him a sharp scowl.

Students are scrambling for their desks now. Zuko’s smile falters and she thinks she reads confusion in his eyes, but she only lets her scowl deepen before she looks away and shoulders her way through the crush of students. She plunks herself down next to Suki who asks rather concernedly if Katara is feeling well.

Katara doesn’t have an answer for her. The hum of the moment Zuko’s smile widened still sings up her spine.

The room quiets and settles just before Mr. Tatkik opens the door. He walks up the aisle, looking over his group of silent students, a gleam of satisfaction in his pale blue eyes. He comes to a stop behind his desk and opens the dictionary that sits upon it. Katara straightens in her seat. The humiliation ebbs just a bit. Every student knows what it means when the teacher opens the dictionary. She thinks she hears a few of the smaller students groan. If he notices, Mr. Tatkik does not acknowledge them.

“I would like to assess your spelling skills,” he announces. “Please stand.”

It is an easy enough way to prove herself to this new teacher, Katara thinks smugly. Her confidence rises with the passing of each round. The little ones all sit first. Aang Park hangs in quite well for someone so much younger. Mai Xu looks mortified when he out-spells her. Katara spells down Sokka handily and goes toe-to-toe with Suki who gives her hand a squeeze after she sits. Katara and Zuko are the only students left standing now. She chances a glance in his direction. He is focused on Mr. Tatkik, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Zuko spells ‘impalpable’ with no problem.

Katara spells ‘eccentricity.’

Zuko looks almost bored when Mr. Tatkik asks him to spell ‘ambiguous.’

It is right before Mr. Tatkik asks Katara to spell ‘lackadaisical’ that Zuko finally stops looking at the teacher and cuts his eyes to her.

“Lackadaisical,” Katara says. She tries to repress a shiver. She can _feel_ him staring. Her heart gives another funny squeeze. “L-A-C-K-I—”

“No,” Mr. Tatkik says and Katara stares at him, startled.

“I mean—”

“No,” the teacher repeats. She thinks she hears a tinge of victory in his voice. “ _Sit_.”

Katara melts into her seat, eyes wide with disbelief. Humiliation rises like bile in her throat yet again. With it, though, rises righteous anger and that is what she clings to when Zuko correctly spells lackadaisical and earns Mr. Tatkik’s praise.

It is what she clings to when Mr. Tatkik says, “Perhaps if it weren’t for your _lackadaisical_ attitude toward spelling, Miss Narvak, you would have bested our most talented student.”

And it is what she clings to that night when she goes home, pulls the dictionary from the shelf of books in the living room, and demands that her father quiz her on every possible word before bed.

* * *

Sokka wakes up Wednesday morning and throws up before Gran Gran can even place his breakfast in front of him. She puts the back of a wrinkled hand on his forehead and frowns before declaring that he will not be attending school that day. She sends Sokka back to bed before reaching out to feel Katara’s forehead.

Katara hopes against hope that she too will be declared too ill to attend school even though she feels fine, but she isn’t warm and Gran Gran deems her fit to go. She walks to school without her brother, feeling thoroughly alone in her late-night heartache until Suki meets up with her on the road and they walk the remainder of the distance arm in arm.

It is the same on Thursday morning.

Friday morning finds Katara completely alone on her walk and at her desk. There are a few other students missing and Katara suspects that Sokka’s illness has taken down the missing children. She stays in at morning recess to work ahead in her books and avoid the others. At lunch, Ty Lee invites her to eat with the rest of the girls, but she takes her meal a satisfactory way down the creek and into a little copse of trees where she knows nobody will disturb her. The grass is overrun with flowers here and she loses herself in her meal and gathering a bouquet that she fancies taking to the cemetery after school lets out. She is so content in her solitude that the thundering of footsteps across the bridge almost doesn’t reach her.

_Oh no._

Scooping up her lunch pail, Katara sprints back toward the schoolhouse and manages to squeeze in with the rest of the tardy students who had obviously gone to pick gum at the Yoshida property. She is the only girl in the group and stands somewhat dumbly at the front of the pack, lunch pail in one hand, bouquet of wildflowers in the other.

Mr. Tatkik stands indomitably at the front of the room, his arms folded over his chest.

“Miss Narvak,” he says darkly. Katara forces herself not to quail under the weight of his glare. “Dispose of those flowers _immediately_.” His tone brooks no arguments and Katara reluctantly turns back to the door of the schoolhouse to follow his directions. The flowers are torn away on a breeze before they can hit the ground.

When she turns back around, it is to see Mr. Tatkik clearing her things from her desk. He picks them up in his ancient hands. The boys have dispersed to their seats. Katara feels every single pair of eyes in the room on her.

“Since you seem to relish in the boys’ company,” Mr. Tatkik says, “I shall indulge you for the rest of the day.”

Mai Xu starts snickering behind a delicate hand, but abruptly stops when the teacher places Katara’s things in Sokka’s empty spot.

For the second time that week, Katara wishes the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Her face is _burning_. Surely a person _must_ burst into flames when their face is this warm!

“You’ll spend the rest of the day sitting with Mr. Himura.”

“But—”

“ _Now._ ”

Somehow, Katara’s feet carry her forward. She sits as far away from Zuko as she can on the tiny bench. There is hardly enough room to put space between them. He seems so _broad_ up close. His left hand, the one that had so cruelly snatched Mother’s ribbon from her hair earlier this week is curled loosely around the edges of his books. He is staring at her, face impassive but for curious golden eyes. She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of meeting his gaze. Instead, she keeps her eyes fixated on Mr. Tatkik who smirks in open satisfaction before returning to the front of the room and calling attention to his transfixed class.

Katara wants to bury her head in her arms and never resurface. This whole week has turned into nothing but an exercise in proving Father wrong. It _is not_ the right time for her to return to school.

 _Chin up_ , Mother’s voice says in her head, _my brilliant, bright, beautiful girl. Have courage to triumph over your fears._

And those remembered words give her just enough of a reason to straighten her spine and crack open her books without giving this awful teacher the further satisfaction of seeing her crumble under his unfair rule. She does her work dutifully and studiously, ignoring the way Zuko’s knee sometimes nudges hers under the desk when he shifts in his seat. She doesn’t comment when his hand brushes hers as they are writing (she considers the fact that Sokka made Zuko trade seats even more generous now that she knows Zuko is left-handed).

What she cannot ignore, though, is the way he smells. She wonders vaguely if cardamom and black tea are woven into the material of his shirt because she is granted heady whiffs whenever he moves. At one point, he reaches his arms up in the air to stretch out his back and she loses her spot in the text she is reading because she thinks she detects an undercurrent of cinnamon. The way he smells reminds her of late-autumn days and golden sunshine that dips low above the pines early in the day. It’s such a warm, inviting scent for a boy who can so carelessly subject a stranger to humiliation, she thinks.

At the end of the school day, she is gathering her materials and he accidentally knocks over her slate water. Thankfully it’s capped, so there is no mess to clean up. He has the decency to look abashed at the very least, and rights the bottle.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Though his voice is soft, it is heavy with meaning and Katara almost, _almost_ pauses to respond. The steel in her soul refuses to let her, though. She simply finishes moving her supplies back to her desk, packs what she needs for home, and exits the schoolhouse with some other students, leaving him to stare after her in saddened frustration.

* * *

When she relays the story of her day to Father and Gran Gran over dinner, Father is astounded and does not hesitate to say so.

“Punishing my daughter alone when other students were late to class?” he thunders, standing up from his chair. It scrapes roughly against the floor. “This is entirely unacceptable!”

Gran Gran places a hand on his arm. “Hakoda,” she says quietly, “calm yourself.”

“I will not!” Father says. He moves towards the door and begins to fumble into his coat. “I’m going straight to the Yoshida place to have words with him right now!”

Gran Gran stands up from her chair, small but formidable. “You will not.” Her words are strong despite their softness. Something passes in the air between the two adults. Katara narrows her eyes in confusion, chewing her dinner a little bit slower.

“Mother,” Father starts, his jacket hanging from the one arm he managed to jam into a sleeve.

“No.” Gran Gran shakes her head. “You will sit and finish eating dinner with your daughter. You will help her clean the dirty dishes. And when that is all done, you will check on your son. I alone will deal with Katara’s teacher.”

Father opens his mouth in an attempt to protest, but Gran Gran raises a hand and effectively silences him. With a petulant look on his face, he hangs his coat back on the hook and retrieves Gran Gran’s hat and shawl. As she readies herself to leave, he steps out to hitch the emu-horses to the buggy.

Katara looks at her grandmother, desperate to ask about what is happening and worried about being impertinent. Gran Gran only kisses her on the forehead and steps determinedly out the door. When Father comes back inside, he retrieves the dictionary from its spot on the shelf and sits down at the table.

“Father?” Katara asks.

“Hm?” He is looking for a word that will stump her, she knows.

“Where did Gran Gran go?” She asks ‘where,’ but she means ‘why’ and Father knows it.

“Unfinished business,” he says before taking a bite of his dinner. “Now, spell ‘calamitous’ for me.”

Katara grins.

She and Father linger over dinner longer than they should. Spelling words turns into uproarious jokes that lure Sokka out of his sickbed. He wanders into the dining room, hair rumpled, pillow creases on his cheeks. When he sits down at the table, Katara makes him a plate of food and he eats it all with gusto. Together, the three of them clean the dirty dishes before gathering around the fireplace to wait for Gran Gran.

Sokka falls asleep on the couch and Father is nodding off over a thick novel before the door squeaks open on its hinges. The sun has long since set and Gran Gran’s eyes are tight with exhaustion when she enters the living room. She nudges Sokka’s feet and pushes until he wakes up and makes room for her to sit.

“Mother?”

“Gran Gran?”

Katara and her father speak at the same time. Gran Gran sighs and gestures Katara over. She kneels next to her grandmother who unwinds the younger woman’s braid and begins combing her aging fingers through the long, brown strands.

“A long time ago,” Gran Gran begins, “before your father was even a twinkle in my eye, there was a man who loved me dearly.”

“Granddad,” Sokka says conclusively.

“Before your grandfather,” Gran Gran amends. “I was sixteen years old and he was the first boy to ever court me. He brought me snow lilies and lavender and he had such a quick wit. It seemed to me that all of the knowledge in the universe lived in his mind. Before he went away to college, he brought me a ring and asked if I would be willing to wait for four long years for him to earn his degree and be able to build us a home. And I agreed.

“But the young heart is a fickle thing and the brain is even worse,” she sighs. “He was gone for so long and I grew worried that I had made over exaggerations of his love in my mind. My friends were all marrying their sweethearts so quickly, you see. There were celebrations of love everywhere. Some of them had been able to break more than one man’s heart before settling down. So I wrote him a letter and tucked the ring into the envelope. He never wrote back and I married your grandfather not long after.

“My old sweetheart held out hope, though. He hadn’t heard that I married someone else. When he returned, it was to find me a married woman with a sweet baby boy. We fought horribly and he left.”

When Katara looks up, she sees unshed tears sparkling in Gran Gran’s eyes.

“His name was Pakku Tatkik.”

“That sounds familiar,” Sokka says. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“ _Sokka_ ,” Katara whispers, almost embarrassed for her brother. “Mr. Tatkik.”

“Mr. Tatkik?” It takes a moment for realization to light up Sokka’s eyes. “ _Ewww!_ Gran Gran! He’s _old!_ And he’s _bald!_ ”

Gran Gran laughs heartily. “He was once a young man with a full head of hair, Sokka. You best hope you don’t end up the same way!” Her voice is teasing and she pokes Sokka in the temple with a gentle finger.

“My _hair_ ,” Sokka whispers melodramatically and claps his hands to his head.

Katara giggles before returning her attention to her grandmother. “Is that why Mr. Tatkik doesn’t like me?” she asks.

Gran Gran harrumphs. “That and the fact that you’re a girl.”

“He doesn’t hate _me_ ,” Sokka says proudly.

“And he certainly isn’t impressed with you either,” Gran Gran digs.

“Oh.”

“Katara,” Gran Gran says, “Mr. Tatkik thinks you are a bright girl. Bright enough even to join the Ba Sing Se Academy class soon. He is willing to put his prejudice against your name aside now that I’ve spoken to him. I don’t expect you’ll have any further problems on that front.”

“Good,” Father says. He leans back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest.

“The Ba Sing Se class?” Katara says. Suddenly, her whispered wishes to Mother do not seem so far out of reach. She looks to her father. “Could I? If it’s possible?”

Her father shrugs one broad shoulder. “I don’t see why not.”

Katara can’t fight a grin and turns to beam it at her grandmother. “Thank you!”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Gran Gran grumbles. “Pakku is an old man and quite set in his ways. He will not place any girls in the Ba Sing Se class if he can help it. You’ll have to work very hard. Harder than the boy he hopes to place in the class.”

Her heart sinking, Katara cannot help but ask, “Which boy?”

“Destiny,” Gran Gran answers with a wink, “is a very funny thing. Let’s hope there are no more broken slates in your future.”

* * *

Monday morning, Katara thinks that Mr. Tatkik gives her the barest of ghost of a smile (possibly a trick of the light) when she brings him her geometry problems and they are all correct. Her soul stretches a little taller and she carries her head high back to her seat. When the teacher isn’t looking, Sokka pokes her in the side.

“ _Psst!_ Katara!”

“What?” She turns her questioning eyes to her brother.

“You don’t think he’s going to court Gran Gran again, do you?” Sokka’s face is locked in horror and disgust, and she can’t help but agree.

“Sokka,” she says, “I shudder to think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon Zuko is a lefty whose clothes smell like chai because Iroh tends to hoard sachets of tea in every drawer and cupboard imaginable. (Canon might fight me on his handedness, but I will only concede that he is possibly ambidextrous.)
> 
> Thanks for continuing with me on this journey. I'm looking forward to discovering more of this story with all of you!


	3. Insights and Intrusions

The prospect of earning a spot in Mr. Tatkik’s elite Ba Sing Se Academy class inspires Katara to develop something of an unhealthy academic rivalry with Zuko Himura. If her teacher is so reluctant to promote her education with the same focus he promotes a male students, then, she decides, she’ll give him his just desserts by outpacing that boy at every opportunity. She takes to studying before and after school with untold veracity. Sokka laments the loss of time to pester his sister loudly and so often that Gran Gran promptly boots him out the door one day and tells him to “find something productive to occupy his time.”

Father is there in evenings to help with the trickier things Katara doesn’t want to admit she struggles with. Despite his early mornings and the yawns that stretch his jaw after dinner, he insists on helping with percentages and angles and grammar until their eyes are blurry with exhaustion and they both have to reluctantly forfeit.

All of the hard work pays off when Mr. Tatkik posts the results of the first set of monthly examinations and Katara bests Zuko by eight points. To her extreme disappointment, he shakes her hand and congratulates in front of the other students, a small grin on his face. Seemingly not to be outdone and written off, though, Zuko returns at the end of the second month with a score that surpasses Katara’s by only one point. She sniffs a reluctant and icy “congratulations” to him, but does not shake his hand and resolutely buries herself even further in her studies.

She spends each recess doing extra work and reading extensively. At first, Suki implores her to come outside with the others for a bit of exercise, but the requests taper off around the time Sokka begins joining the girls for lunch. Unfortunately, his presence draws Zuko who draws Mai Xu and Ty Lee, and Katara finds herself utterly put out and grumpy at the end of each lunch hour.

To Zuko’s credit, the academic rivalry is entirely good natured on his part. He likes to be challenged and, when Sokka expresses sympathy for the other boy’s plight, he shrugs it off and says, “I don’t mind,”with a smile that he hides by turning his head down.

Sokka shakes his head. “It’s a shame Katara refuses to be nice to you,” he says. “If anyone could appreciate her brain, it would be you.” (Truth be told, Sokka is sharp enough to join the Ba Sing Se Academy class, too, but he’s never seen himself as the type to sit behind a desk and earn a degree that requires him to learn lofty languages.)

While her weekdays are spent on lessons, Katara makes a tradition of reserving every Saturday morning for her mother. She gathers wildflowers from the roadside as she makes her weekly pilgrimage to the seaside cemetery where she weaves the flowers into rings to lay around the headstone or ties the blooms into bundles with blades of grass. Most of these mornings she spends talking to her mother. Sometimes she cries to relieve the ever-present ache in her heart.

One particular Saturday morning in mid autumn finds Katara laying on the cold ground next to the place where her mother rests, long curls of hair spiraling through the grass in a dark halo, blue eyes studying the clouds that pass overhead. The sea breeze is growing sharp with the oncoming winter chill and the tip of Katara’s nose is turning pink. Hands in mittens and hat discarded, she is too lost in her one-sided conversation to notice the approaching footsteps. She is still young enough to build castles in the sky, after all.

“I think I’d like a wind chime made of beautiful gems,” she says. “I would hang it in the window of my bedroom so that the sun would shine through it in the mornings and cause a cascade of rainbows to fall across the room. It wouldn’t make a sound because I don’t think gems do that, but mornings would be so much more bearable if you could wake up to see rainbows dancing across the floor, don’t you think, Mother?”

Mother doesn’t answer, and Katara vocalizes another layer to her house of dreams.

“…white marble floors that sparkle like the snow,” she says. “It would be a dream to dance across floors that look like snow without getting your toes wet.”

The gate to the little cemetery squeaks loudly and clicks shut, jarring Katara out of her castle in the sky. She sits up abruptly, hair and eyes wild, to find herself locking gazes with a shame-faced Zuko. One of his hands rests on the gate, the other dangles at his side, a single white flower caught in its grasp. Embarrassment flushes Katara’s face and she hopes that she can blame her pink cheeks and watering eyes on the chilly gusts of wind that roll in off the ocean.

“I…” he starts roughly before clearing his throat. “Um… Good morning.” He is looking anywhere but at her face and… Oh, spirits, did he _hear_ anything she was saying? There would be nothing worse than the person she detests most overhearing the secrets of her heart!

“Good morning,” she squeaks out out of propriety.

This seems to give Zuko enough courage to continue his own little pilgrimage because he steps away from the gate and continues towards his destination. Katara scrambles to her feet as he walks past and sets about combing her fingers through her hair. He doesn’t spare her another glance though and she is left to watch him approach a headstone a few rows closer to the ocean than her mother’s. He lays the flower at the foot of the smooth marble with reverence before kneeling, his head bowed low.

Katara takes the opportunity to flee, careful to swing the gate as silently as possible so as not to disturb Zuko’s moment with his loved one.

It isn’t until she is walking through the front door of her house that she realizes she left her hat behind.

* * *

The following Monday, Katara finds her forgotten hat sitting on her desk. She had written it off as a lost cause, certain that Zuko Himura would never bring it back and that, had she gone to retrieve it herself, the wind would have torn it away by the time she got there. She glances at Zuko who doesn’t acknowledge her, his head bowed over a book. She doesn’t say thank you, just hangs it with her jacket at the hook by the door and settles in to study before school starts. They have end of the month examinations coming up after all, and this time she will not be bested.

Lunch hours begin to grow cold. Ty Lee and Mai complain every day for several weeks before deciding they’ll eat lunch at the Yoshido house with the rest of Ty Lee’s family. The invitation is extended to everyone else thanks to Ty Lee’s boundless generosity and good humor. Katara half expects Zuko to accept the offer due to the way Mai relentlessly shadows him, but he declines in favor of staying with Sokka, Suki, and Katara, and none of them are invited again.

At first, Katara doesn’t mind. Even though she still has to spend her lunch hour in close proximity to Zuko, he doesn’t speak to her and she is now free of the taxing energies of Mai and Ty Lee. It’s a marked improvement on the past few months.

The problem is that Sokka and Suki don’t seem to want to stick around. One afternoon, Suki loudly announces that she’s going to take a stroll down the road. Sokka watches her cross the bridge before announcing that he thinks he’ll go with her.

“Just to make sure she’s safe,” he tosses hastily over his shoulder.

And, just like that, Katara is left alone with Zuko Himura.

It would be too painfully obvious for her to simply get up and walk away. Gran Gran would be utterly appalled by the lack of decorum. So she sits.

Neither of them say a word.

Slowly, it starts to dawn on Katara that maybe _Zuko_ is sticking around for propriety’s sake as well, that perhaps he _did_ hear her talking to her mother that morning in the cemetery and thinks she’s gone ‘round the bend.

“I was talking to my mother that morning!” she blurts out. Loudly.

He blinks at her.

“She died,” she adds. As if he _doesn’t know_. As if Sokka _has probably not already told him_.

Oh, spirits, let him just walk away now! Never before has she met someone who has caused her to wish so many times that the ground would just gobble her up.

Instead of running away, he says, “I’m sorry. That’s something we have in common.”

Katara freezes. A stab of icy remorse punches through her stomach. “Oh,” she whispers. “I… I didn’t know.”

“No,” he says with a sad smile. “You wouldn’t.”

She feels like she should look away from him, but he keeps his eyes steady on her face and she finds that she can’t. The silence between them swells and grows. Katara’s brain spirals into a frenzy and starts throwing out absurd suggestions like reaching out to put her hand on his or opening her mouth and spilling out the whole horrible truth about the grief that wrenches at her heart every day...and he is _still_ looking at her!

She opens her mouth to speak and is thankfully saved whatever stupid words are about to tumble forth when Mr. Tatkik rings the bell to call the students back to class. Katara lurches to her feet and smooths the skirt of her blue dress, mouth firmly clamped shut. She bends to pick up her lunch pail, but Zuko gets there first, hooking the handle on one finger and holding it out to her. He’s still sitting in the brittle brown grass, eyes studying her flushed face. She takes the pail and makes to leave, but he stops her, one warm, pale hand about her wrist.

Katara is about to berate him when he says simply, “Good luck on the monthly examination,” and then sets her free.

She is at a loss for words. Coherent emotions dance just out of reach. Everything is muddled, hazy with the concrete knowledge of Zuko Himura’s humanity. Somehow she finds her way to her seat and prepares to sit the examination, rolling her pencil between her fingertips.

Suki slides into their shared seat just in the knick of time, jostling Katara’s shoulder in the process and thus drawing her back to reality. The nudge brings an avalanche of sentence structure and math formulas back into her memory, but she struggles with the distracting memory of Zuko’s hand on her wrist for the duration of the exam. She walks home behind Sokka and Suki that night, positive she has failed miserably and that she will not be chosen to join the Ba Sing Se Academy class.

She blames Zuko, certain he intentionally distracted her.

On Friday morning, Mr. Tatkik stands before the class with a piece of chalk in his hands. Katara’s knees are trembling beneath her dress. She does not quite know what to do with her hands. She could easily lie to herself and blame her shakiness on the cold. The first snow of the season fell last night and the stove in the front corner of the schoolhouse is not quite warm enough yet. But she feels the weight of all her hopes and dreams riding on this announcement and knows that she will crash mightily down to Earth if she has not exceeded expectations. She pulls her braid over her shoulder and runs her fingers over the embroidery on Mother’s ribbon as she waits in agony.

“A tie,” Mr. Tatkik finally announces, turning to the board.

The first name he writes at the top of the board is Zuko’s. Katara hears Sokka congratulate his friend and give him a hearty slap on the back, but it all registers as a dull echo in her ears. She feels the spiral back to reality begin—a life with too-ambitious dreams awaiting her at the bottom.

And then Mr. Tatkik writes her name below Zuko’s and she slaps a hand over her mouth in shock. She hasn’t beat him for first, but they’ve tied. For the first time, bitterness about not beating out Zuko Himura for first does not swell in her chest. The downward spiral stops and reverses course. Katara’s castle in the sky begins to reassemble. Sokka and Suki sandwich her in a joyous group hug before Mr. Tatkik quickly calls order back to his class.

He asks Katara, Zuko, Suki, and Sokka to stay after school. Katara exchanges several wordless, confused glances with Suki as the younger students file out of the building. When she looks over her shoulder, Sokka shrugs and Zuko is sitting casually in his seat, arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m promoting the four of you to the sixth class,” Mr. Tatkik says and Katara squeezes Suki’s forearm in silent glee. To be younger than the other three and keeping up so well means her hard work is paying off. “Mr. Himura, Miss Narvak, Miss Lin, I would also like to invite you to attend an extra hour of classes each day to prepare for the Ba Sing Se Academy entrance exams.”

It is all Katara can do to prevent herself from flinging her arms around Suki with a loud squeal. She looks to her dearest friend who is staring at the teacher in dumbfounded silence.

“Me?” she asks quietly. “But... I don’t keep up near as well as Katara or Zuko.”

“Truth be told, I’ve not asked female students to attend my Ba Sing Se class in the past,” Mr. Tatkik says. “Miss Narvak has done a lot of work to open my eyes to the error of my ways. You all have natural talent and learn quickly from your mistakes. _All_ of you.” Here, his eyes land on Sokka. “I would like to invite you to join the class as well.”

Katara can’t help the thrill that warms her soul at the thought of how delighted Mother would be to see both of her children on the path to a B.A. and she turns to flash a beatific smile at her brother. The smile slides quickly off her face when Sokka shakes his head.

“No, thank you, sir,” he says.

Mr. Tatkik hums thoughtfully and gives Sokka an assessing sort of stare. “I don’t suppose I can change your mind,” he says after a moment.

“No, sir.”

Mr. Tatkik relents, announces they will begin their sixth class work on Monday and that Ba Sing Se Academy classes will begin after the new year, and then releases the four students for the evening.

Katara, eager to pester her brother for the reasons behind his refusal, rather disappointedly finds herself shunted to Zuko’s company when Sokka dashes ahead to keep pace with Suki. She watches with sharp eyes as Sokka gathers Suki’s books with his own and says something that makes the gray-eyed girl throw her head back in raucous laughter.

Feeling rather put out by her abandonment, Katara is surprised when Zuko says, “My uncle told me a funny joke the other day about...about tea.”

Her eyes jump to his face, one dark brow arching up. “Oh?”

“Yes. I...um...” He rubs the back of his neck and seems to have trouble meeting her eyes. “Well...” The rest of his words come out in a rush, “I don’t remember the whole thing, but the end of it is, ‘Leaf me alone! I’m bushed!’” He chuckles rather awkwardly and Katara blinks at him, unamused. “It was... It was better when he told it.”

“I can imagine,” Katara says drily. She thinks she sees him cringe and almost regrets her tone. Then she remembers the burning shame that accompanied her embarrassment on the first day of school and the rage she felt over the way he plucked her mother’s ribbon from her hair, bested her on a monthly exam, and stumbled upon her at her mother’s grave—and all with seemingly no regret! Her heart hardens again and she and Zuko complete the rest of the walk in silence. He looks all too relieved when they part ways, she to follow awkwardly behind Suki and Sokka and he to turn toward the Sozin farm.

* * *

Later that night, Sokka finds Katara bundled under blankets on the front porch, eyes fixated on the faint auroras that shimmer and gyrate through the night sky. He sits down next to her and she makes space under her blankets for him. They sit quietly for several minutes, watching the auroras shift, the colors streaking and painting the night, reflecting faintly on the snowy ground.

“Sokka,” Katara eventually asks, he voice quiet, “why won’t you join the Ba Sing Se class?”

“I don’t see much of a point in it,” he replies.

“Not much of a point?” she says, incredulous. “Sokka! You can go to college if you go to the academy!”

He shrugs. “Got to college for _what_ , Katara?”

“You could be a...a doctor. Or a lawyer!” Even as the words leave her mouth, she knows they don’t suit her brother and she’s proven right when Sokka shakes his head.

“I don’t _want_ to be a doctor or a lawyer, Sis.”

“You could try for some other degree, then.”

Sokka sighs and looks at her. She notices how like their father his face is becoming. The planes and angles are sharpening into manhood. And he has always been more Hakoda’s son, just as she was Kya’s daughter. He built his happiness on life on the little island of Kyoshi and she always dreamed too big to let her happiness be contingent on her life staying the same.

“What degree, Katara?” he asks. “Why should I waste Father’s money seeking something I’ll never use. I _like_ helping Father with the farm. Knowing how to run it _makes sense_ to me. He’ll need help as he gets older and I _want_ to help him. I don’t need to go away to college for that.”

Katara casts her brother a rueful smile and leans her head on his shoulder. “But I’ll miss you, Sokka.”

He scoffs. “No. You’ll be busy besting Zuko on papers and tests and astounding a whole new world of people,” he says good naturedly. “It won’t be too long before you forget about little old me.”

They stay up for a while, admiring the streaky blues, purples, and greens of the auroras, each thinking of their own future.

* * *

Winter vacation comes and along with it come Sokka and Katara’s birthdays, a week apart. They spend a couple of evenings in furtive, whispered conversations before announcing to their father and grandmother that they don’t want the usual yearly celebration that they’re used to sharing. It is their first set of birthdays without their mother and the pain of it cuts both siblings to the bone.

Instead of the usual party filled with friends and decorations, Sokka and Katara turn sixteen and fifteen respectively in the cozy company of Father and Gran Gran. In the morning, the little family joins Katara in her weekly pilgrimage to Kya’s grave. The seasonal weather means there are no flowers to bring, but Katara sits up the night before making a colorful little pennant banner that she drapes across the icy headstone. The trip is silent and Katara thinks she sees Sokka hastily wipe a couple of tears from his cheeks when he thinks nobody is looking. When they get home, Gran Gran makes a big lunch with a festive cake for dessert. It is a colorful confection—fluffy white cake studded with purple winter berries and frosted in shades of blue. Father gives Katara a new journal bound in rich brown leather that is embossed with her initials and a wave that rolls over itself into a circle. He gifts Sokka a new belt made of the same leather. Gran Gran has knit them each a new scarf, Katara’s a soft periwinkle, Sokka’s a navy so dark it almost seems black.

In the evening, Suki skips down the snowy hill from her house with two gifts bundled under her arm. She is a welcome intruder into the cozy little scene and presents her gifts to the siblings with a wide smile. Sokka is gleefully ripping into his gift and Katara is methodically slipping her finger between tape and paper when there is another knock at the door.The five share a look of confusion before Hakoda shrugs and goes to answer the door. He comes back while Katara is admiring Suki’s gift, a slim copy of Wollstonecraft’s vindications, and he is not alone. Katara looks up to see her father showing Zuko Himura and a small, rotund man into the sitting room. Zuko looks positively like he would rather be anywhere else, but the shorter man with him is looking around the room with great interest.

“I am so very sorry to intrude,” he says to Hakoda. “I’m afraid we cannot continue on in this weather!”

“Zuko!” Sokka exclaims gleefully at the same time Suki asks in alarm, “What weather?!”

Gran Gran, whose favorite chair sits between the window and the fireplace, reaches out to pull back the curtain. Outside, snow is swirling wildly, thickly, and without pause.Katara’s heart drops into her stomach and squirms where it sits near her bellybutton. She thinks of the untidiness of the room—there are cushions all over the floor from where she and Sokka had been lounging about before Suki’s arrival, plates full of cake crumbs and smeared with blue frosting litter the flat surfaces, wrapping paper is scattered across the floor and Sokka’s enthusiasm in opening his gifts mean that some has drifted around like confetti—and tries not to flush in embarrassment. Gran Gran is certainly unruffled. Katara breathes deep, straightens her shoulders, and tries to follow her grandmother’s lead.

“Well,” Hakoda says, “it looks like we’ll all be here for the night. I heard they were predicting a blizzard this weekend, but didn’t put much stock in it. The sky was so clear this morning.”

“Katara,” Gran Gran says, nudging the girl with her toe, “go put on a pot of tea for our guests. And perhaps pass around some cake.”

Zuko’s uncle positively dances in excitement. “Please,” he says in his slow, deep voice, “allow me. I do love a nice pot of tea. There is something new to be learned with each brew.”

He turns from the room and Katara follows him. She finds that she isn’t following because she doesn’t trust this portly man, but rather because she is intrigued. And if she goes with him, then she is not disobeying Gran Gran, though she doubts that she will be allowed to do much.

Zuko’s uncle busies himself in the kitchen without much pomp and circumstance. He seems right at home, stoking the fire in the stove and filling the kettle with water. Katara quietly pulls her mother’s blue china tea set from the cabinet and the elderly man fawns over it.

“What a lovely pattern!”

“It was my mother’s,” Katara says softly, arranging the cups and saucers on a tray.

“She must have been a woman of fine taste.”

Katara looks up into the man’s kind, golden eyes and finds a softness in them that seems familiar. She smiles, feeling an affinity with this kindly soul bloom in her chest. “She was indeed, Mr. Sozin.”

“Please,” he says, “call me Uncle Iroh.”

Katara snorts a laugh. “I don’t think my Gran Gran would approve of that.”

“Pah!” Iroh waves a dismissive hand through the air. “Kanna knows that I am not a man of much formality.”

“You know my grandmother?” she asks, her eyebrows rising high.

“Of course! All old people know each other!”

“So it seems.” She cannot help but think of Gran Gran’s surprising connection to Mr. Tatkik.

Iroh is gentle and patient with the way he prepares the tea. Katara’s cake slices are several minutes old and waiting on another tray by the time he deems the brew ready. He eyes the cake with interest.

“Have we interrupted a party, my dear girl?”

Katara’s cheeks flush. “My brother, Sokka, and I celebrate together every year. Our birthdays are a week apart.” She leads Uncle Iroh down the hallway to the sitting room.

“It is a small party for two such wonderful children,” he remarks.

“Yes… It’s… It’s the first year without our mother.” Their eyes meet across the doorway and she sees understanding cross his bearded face.

“Then our interruption is all the more grave.” Then he adds in a conspiratorial whisper, “I did wonder for a moment if my nephew’s boyhood temper had gotten the better of him and was tempted to assume that was why he was not invited. He mentions you both often.”

Katara’s eyes bulge in her head, but Uncle Iroh shuffles into the room and begins pouring tea with a jovial story about Zuko’s first attempt at brewing tea and how acrid the drink had been. As Katara passes out cake, she notices that Zuko has picked up the book Suki had given her. He holds it in front of his face and she can tell that he is hiding red cheeks behind its pages, so she says nothing, content that the universe has finally sought to avenge her and her wounded pride. The evening, which she had initially thought would end in misery, continues on late into the night thanks to Iroh’s affability and Father’s deep laugh.

Zuko keeps to Sokka’s company and rarely participates in group discussion. Their eyes meet by chance a few times throughout the night and her heart still gives that funny squeeze in her chest whenever it happens, but he never says a word to her and she is thankful for that.

Snow is still falling in a quick blur of flurries when Katara and Suki climb the stairs to her room. Hakoda shows Iroh to the guest room and Sokka has an arm slung around Zuko’s shoulder as he chatters the older boy’s ear off. Katara lends Suki a spare nightgown and the two spend some time comparing their impressions of Zuko’s uncle before turning out the light. He is an extremely likable man, it is decided, with delightful sense of humor despite his sometimes cryptic way of speaking.

“Katara?” Suki’s voice is soft through the darkness.

“Hm?”

“Will you ever forgive Zuko?”

Katara frowns. “No, Suki. I don’t think I will.”

Suki sighs and Katara feels the shake of her head against the pillow. “That’s such a shame, Katara.”

Frustration bubbles up in Katara’s chest as her frown deepens. “Why?” she bites out frostily.

“Well… He only ever says nice things about you. He says you’re very intelligent and he told me that he thinks you’re witty and kind.”

Katara opens her mouth to make a caustic comment, but Suki continues, cutting her off.

“I thought that was funny because I’ve never seen you be nice to him. So he must be seeing through this wall you’re attempting to put up. And it’s just such a shame, Katara,” she says, “because he couldn’t stop _looking_ at you tonight.”

Katara _harrumphs_ and turns her head away from Suki in order to hide her scarlet face. “That last part just isn’t true,” she says loftily.

“Well, you didn’t look at him, so you wouldn’t know.”

“I did so!”

“Not intentionally!”

There are several tense moments of silence wherein Katara reminds herself that Suki has been her dearest friend since they were tots. Her ability to speak her mind freely is one of the things Katara loves best about her. They have never marred their friendship with blatant lies. It is the reminder of this that makes Katara mutter,

“Why does it matter so much to you if I forgive him?”

Suki is quiet for a moment. Katara almost thinks she’s fallen asleep. Then she says, “Katara, you’ve been so sad this past year. I didn’t see you for a month after your mom died and when I did, it was like someone had stolen all of the best pieces of my dearest friend. You didn’t come to school. Whenever I came to visit, you stopped sharing your secrets and dreams with me. You stopped talking about wanting to go to the academy in Ba Sing Se. And I know it’s because your mother encouraged you in all of those things, so I understand.”

Katara turns to her, tears welling up in her eyes. “I _miss her_ , Suki. It never goes away.”

“I know,” Suki says. She grabs Katara’s hand and squeezes. “But Zuko didn’t take your mother away from you. In fact, I think that if there was anyone in the world who could understand how you feel, it would be Zuko. His mother is gone, too, you know.”

“I…I know,” Katara chokes out. “He told me.”

Suki’s hand squeezes hers again. “You’ve been dreaming again since he came to school, Katara. I see it in your eyes all the time. You’ve been so determined and working so hard. If you would be willing to work past that initial misunderstanding, I think… I think you could start to be happy again. Not in the same way, of course. Friends don’t bring mothers back. But I think it would help you realize there is still joy in the world if you could open your heart up to his friendship.”

It takes Katara a few minutes and a great deal of sniffling, but she finally gets out, “I won’t promise anything, Suki. But I’ll think about it.”

The moonlight shining through the window reveals Suki’s grin. “That’s all I ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been asked which iteration of Anne of Green Gables I'm basing things on. I am a book purist, though I dearly loved the 1980s series (all but Continuing Story), so you may find some similarities to those. I am only using them as inspiration, however. There are some original ideas that I want to work into this story and I very much want to stay as true as I can to Zuko and Katara. Gilbert Blythe may be a dreamboat, but there are some things he does and says which Zuko WOULD NEVER. And Katara could never be as dreamy as Anne. So, inspiration only.
> 
> As always, I appreciate your comments and kudos! A busy few days prevented me from replying, but I will do so ASAP! :)


	4. Further Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for your kind words and kudos. Lots of Zuko/Katara interactions in this one! I just can't keep these idiots apart.

Katara gives Suki’s words a fair bit of thought.

People seem to like Zuko. Despite a desperate search, she can find no one in the shared bits of their lives who seems to have a relationship with him that is as filled with as much animosity as hers—or _any_ animosity for that matter. He helps the younger students with their arithmetic sets during school with a level voiceand serene presence that only seems to waver when he helps Aang who ardently despises arithmetic and cannot seem to grasp Zuko’s teaching method (or perhaps doesn’t want to grasp the method). During these times of strife with the younger boy, Katara gets glimpses into the short temper Iroh Sozin had alluded to. Zuko leans back in his seat with a huff of annoyance, grits his jaw, squeezes his eyes shut, and pinches the bridge of his nose. Sometimes the tips of his ears turn pink.

Aang perhaps is not clamoring to be Zuko’s chum, but he seems to hold the older boy in a somewhat grudging admiration.

Sometimes Katara helps Aang with his grammar work and she can’t help but think smugly that her aid is received better than Zuko’s. Perhaps because she pairs it with winning smiles and scads of positivity. She often wonders if she should give Zuko tips on how to best work with Aang, but quickly reminds herself that the few times she has tried to speak with him have resulted in embarrassment on her part and decides that her methods are best kept to herself.

Sokka and Zuko have taken to each other like turtleducks to water. Katara thinks this is bizarre. Really, they seem so opposite in personality, her outgoing brother and his taciturn friend, that she cannot begin to grasp what holds their friendship together. After a few weeks of observation, though, Katara notices the effect Zuko Himura has on Sokka. It seems that a maturity is rounding out Sokka’s personality. She can see it in the little ways in which he emulates Zuko—an openness to shouldering responsibility, a sage word of advice, a development in his sense of humor (this seems to have evolved because Sokka is nothing if not the life of the party and it is notoriously difficult to make Zuko smile). It isn’t _all_ Zuko’s influence, Katara knows, but she thinks the older boy gives her brother something which he can aspire to.

Zuko’s rare smiles seem to be more freely given around Sokka than anyone else. Katara thinks on her interactions with the amber-eyed boy, recalling stilted conversations and the way Zuko struggled to find words. When Sokka joins the group, Zuko seems to take social cues from Sokka’s easy generosity and big grins. He relaxes.

(Katara dares not try to connect how Zuko takes social cues from her brother and the fact that he tried to tell her a joke after witnessing the way Sokka made Suki laugh. She also ignores what she suspects might be blossoming between her brother and her dearest friend. Her aspirations do not lend well to the insights that might be gained from further meditation on either subject.)

Suki and Zuko share an easy camaraderie that seems to be based on their mutual befuddling affection for Sokka. They collaborate easily during Mr. Tatkik’s Ba Sing Se Academy lessons. Therefore, Katara shouldn’t be so surprised when a Saturday morning trip to visit her mother’s grave before a set study date at Suki’s house leads to a long, unexpected walk with Zuko.

Winter is slowly beginning its melt into spring. The ground in the cemetery is muddy and littered with mounds of slush, but the skies are still gray and tiny green buds have yet to appear on the trees. In one hand, Katara carries her books, bound together with an old belt. In the other, she carries this week’s tribute to her mother, a tissue paper flower. She knows it’s silly, that the thin, pink petals of her handcrafted bloom will wilt and eventually dissolve considering the weather, but the little flower lends a speck of cheerfulness to the otherwise dismal atmosphere.

Katara tells her mother about the newest book she is reading, shares details of the languages she is learning in Ba Sing Se classes, and grins as she talks about Sokka’s latest escapade. For some reason, though, her eyes are continuously drawn to the edge of the little cemetery where she knows Zuko has a loved one. They have not met each other on another Saturday excursion since the day she forgot her hat here, but the knowledge of that little gray stone’s existence has lingered. Perhaps it feels more prominent today because she has been watching the boy so closely and pondering Suki’s argument.

Glancing around and seeing not a soul, Katara nestles the pink paper flower on her mother’s grave and then creeps on tiptoes across the lawn to where the intriguing resting place lies near the fence bordering the cemetery. She feels a bit like she is snooping on Zuko, but tries to bury the guilt underneath her curiosity.

The name on the headstone is Ursa Himura and the date of her death is several years before Katara’s mother’s. However, Katara realizes upon closer inspection, both women would have been about the same age. Her heart catches in her throat and it’s a wonder she doesn’t choke on it when Zuko’s voice breaks over her like a sudden wave.

“I see you’ve met my mother.”

Katara’s eyes jump away from the epitaph on the headstone ( _beloved mother and sister-in-law_ ) to the shiny black shoes on the other side of the fence. Above the shoes are those impeccably pressed trousers. Heart hammering in her chest, she follows the trousers up, noting a gloved hand gripping some textbooks, to a deep red coat and, finally, to Zuko Himura’s impassive, scarred face. Shame colors her cheeks and mortification roots her to her spot as he calmly enters the cemetery through the ever-squeaky gate and approaches. He comes to a stop next to her, leaving a few inches between them.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Katara rasps out in a whisper. “I didn’t... I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Of course you did.” She wants to deny it, but he doesn’t even sound offended. She chances a glance at his face and sees the hint of a smirk flicker under his scar. “And I would be lying if I claimed that I didn’t snoop around your mother’s resting place the last time we met here. That’s how I found your hat.”

“This is so rude of me,” she says lamely.

Zuko shrugs. “I know people talk about me. I’m sure you’ve heard rumors.”

“Not rumors exactly,” Katara says. “Suki told me that you moved here last year and that you live with your uncle. Sokka hasn’t said anything.”

He turns his head to look at her and she has the distinct feeling she’s being appraised.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard speculation from Mai or Ty Lee,” he finally says.

Katara snorts a laugh. “Ty Lee is nothing but nice. I’ve never heard an unkind word come out of her mouth. Frivolous thoughts, perhaps. But never anything unkind.”

“And from Mai?”

She returns his assessing look, taking in the shining amusement in his amber eyes and the way he quirks his eyebrow at her. “Well,” she says, feeling bold, “I’d never put much stock into anything a Xu said, good or bad.” She tacks on, “I hope that doesn’t offend you. Mai seems quite fond of you and I suppose I can see why you would take a shine to her. If I squint.”

Zuko doesn’t say a word about Mai in response. They both look back at his mother’s headstone. As she reads over the inscription again, questions begin to formulate in Katara’s mind and she has to bite her tongue in order to suppress them. Thankfully, Zuko seems to feel the need to provide some explanation.

“My father is Ozai Sozin,” he says. “Do you know him?”

Katara frowns and shakes her head. “I can’t say that I do.”

“He used to live here when he was a child, out on the family property.”

“Oh.”

“He’s the reason my mother is here.” Zuko gestures one gloved hand at the grave before them.

“ _Oh_.”

“He’s also the reason for, well...” Now he gestures at his marred eye. “For _this_.”

Katara is struck dumb. She stares at him in horror, her mouth working open and closed as she searches for a way to respond.

“Your brother obviously didn’t tell you,” Zuko says after a moment of her stammering.

“ _No_ ,” Katara says vehemently. “Sokka wouldn’t... He doesn’t... That’s not his place. He would never betray a confidence.”

“He’s a good person.”

“Yes.” Katara’s voice is weak and cracks on the single syllable. “He is.”

“My father isn’t. He was put on trial for what he did. It was all over the newspapers. My testimony is what put him in prison. After all of that, I came here to live with my uncle. He’s the only family I have other than a sister who elected not to join us.”

Remorse crawls up Katara’s spine and perches itself on her shoulders. She has to force herself not to bow under its weight. Zuko isn’t looking at her. His eyes are fixed on the grave. This means he doesn’t notice the way her hand reaches out to rest on his back, but falls short and swings limply back to Katara’s side when she second-guesses the gesture.

“I’m not telling you this to try to earn your trust or forgiveness,” Zuko says. Katara sees him flick a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “You seem to have a lot of conviction. But,” and now he turns to face her fully, “I would like it if we could be friends one day.”

Katara cannot bring herself to face him in turn. A strangled sound burbles up from her throat. She feels relegated to the smallest corner of the universe in the face of his revelations, the world’s smallest person with the biggest sense of pride. Her mother’s ribbon and her cracked slate suddenly seem infinitesimally trivial. She asks, “Why?” in a voice as small as a raindrop.

Zuko’s hand reaches up and out and Katara finds her breath caught in her throat. She thinks for a moment that he might run his gloved fingers over the thick, heavy braid that drapes over her shoulder. Then his hand shoots away to rub the back of his neck, ruffling the strands of his dark hair.

“I…admire you,” he says and the tips of his ears turn red in a way that has nothing to do with the wind coming off the sea. “You’re strong and you’re certain of yourself.”

“Well, your admiration is misplaced,” Katara tells him rather defensively as her cheeks flare as red as his ears. She can feel the walls climb higher around her heart. This boy with a knack for luring her into embarrassment should have no reason to feel any sort of undeserved admiration for her after the way she has reacted to him.

Zuko eyes the books in her hands. “Are you studying at Suki’s house today as well?”

“Pardon?”

He taps the cover of the topmost book. “Did Suki invite you over to study?”

“Yes.”

“She invited me as well. She didn’t say?”

“She probably knew I wouldn’t come if she did,” Katara huffs.

They turn toward the gate of the cemetery in tandem and Zuko holds it open for her as they exit to the road. Suki’s words echo in her ears as they walk towards her home, a brown and green affair on top of a hill. Katara is loath to think that Suki could be right about Zuko Himura, that their contentious beginning stems from a series of misunderstandings and a lot of stubbornness, the latter mostly on Katara’s part. He could have easily gotten mad at her for prying into his life without permission. He doesn’t have to offer to carry her books, but he does. (She declines.) He doesn’t have to reach a supporting hand out to her elbow when a particularly muddy section of the road gives way beneath her feet, but he does. His hand lingers just a moment too long on her arm for propriety, warm and sure. Katara bites back a gasp at the way his eyes flash when she looks up at him.

He clears his throat and returns to an acceptable distance, but says nothing further on their trek to Suki’s house. Katara cannot bring herself to disrupt the silence. She walks next to him, miserably wallowing in the realization that perhaps her anger has been unjustified. The pangs of this misery clang hollowly in her chest alongside the howling pain she still harbors over her mother’s absence, compounding when it dawns on her that she has been so busy licking her wounds that she has been shoving any new happinesses out before they can encroach on her soul.

By the time Suki opens the door with a wide smile, Katara knows anguish is clearly readable on her face. The auburn haired girl hastily takes Zuko’s outerwear and shows him into the sitting room before returning to Katara, a look of frantic remorse in her wide eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Katara,” she whispers. “I know you must be angry. It would have been unfair if I didn’t invite him.”

“I’m not angry, Suki,” Katara says. Her fingers fumble on a button and Suki leaps to help her out of her coat. “I’m… I… _Why is he so nice to me?_ ” She grapples for one of Suki’s hands and holds on tight. “I’ve been an absolute platypus-bear to him. A big, _mean_ platypus-bear.”

“He knows you don’t mean it, Katara,” Suki says soothingly. She squeezes Katara’s hand.

“That’s exactly it, Suki. I was convinced I meant it. I truly was. How could he know…?”

“Well,” Suki says slowly, “I think he’s had his own experiences with grief.”

Katara groans and sinks to the bench in the front hall, burying her face in her hands. “That makes it so much worse!”

Suki lets out a breathy chuckle and sits next to Katara, her fingers brushing soothing circles across the blue-eyed girl’s shoulders. They sit in silence for a few moments before Katara admits quietly, “I’m so embarrassed.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I can’t be his friend, Suki. I just _can’t_. He’ll always think of me as I have been these past months. It would be too mortifying.”

“Then don’t be his friend yet,” Suki says simply.

Katara looks up at her eyes hard and mouth popped open in an ‘O’ of accusation. “You _asked_ me to be friends with him!” she exclaims.

“Don’t be his friend _yet_ ,” Suki reiterates with emphasis. “Just…be nice. Be yourself. I’m positive it will all come together the way it should if that happens.” She stands up and holds out a hand to her friend, beckoning her with waggling fingers. “Come. He won’t bite.”

Katara allows Suki to tow her into the sitting room and she is relieved to see that Zuko has cracked open his books. If he heard anything of the girls’ conversation, he gives no indication. When Suki navigates Katara to sit next to Zuko on the plush, forest green settee, Katara opens her mouth to protest but is silenced by the one eyebrow Suki raises.

“Where shall we begin?” Zuko asks abruptly.

“I think we should all play to our strengths and help the others where it’s needed,” Suki replies. “I’m great with languages, but I’m dismal when it comes to these new grammar topics. Katara?”

Said girl finds herself the focus of two very different gazes, one gray and encouraging, the other soft and golden like autumn sunlight.

“Well,” she says thoughtfully, “I get along alright with grammar, but I think I need help with mathematics.”

“I can help you with that,” Zuko offers. Katara and Suki share a quick look over how quickly the words come out of his mouth. “But I’ll need both of you to help me. I’m mixing up foreign grammar with the new grammar we’re meant to learn.”

“Perfect!” Suki claps her hands together and smiles. “We can all help one another.” Her eyes flick to the door when a baby’s insistent wail breaks out across the house. She offers a somewhat shy smile. “I’ll be back. I just need to see if Mother needs help with the baby.”

She exits the room, a flurry of jade skirts and chestnut hair. Katara, not knowing what else to do, leans forward to pick one of her text books off the table. Zuko seems to be unbothered by the silence in the room that is pervaded only by the fire that crackles merrily in the hearth, but Suki’s encouragement rattles around Katara’s brain, accompanied by Iroh’s whisper about Zuko’s past struggles with anger. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye and wonders if this boy she has slighted so often can truly forgive her.

“Thank you for offering to help me,” she ventures softly.

Zuko smirks but doesn’t look away from his book. “Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. Aang certainly doesn’t take to my help during school the way he does yours.”

“He responds well to positive reinforcement,” Katara says.

“Or maybe he just responds well to your smile,” Zuko counters quickly.

Katara feels her cheeks flush, a sensation that only intensifies when he looks at her with wide eyes and a blanched face. He reaches a hand up to his neck again and she has to bite back the aforementioned smile.

“Oh, _Agni_ ,” he croaks. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to…”

But what exactly it was he didn’t mean to do remains a mystery as he resolutely buries his face back in the book he’d been perusing. Katara sits next to him, bewildered and at a loss for words. Zuko’s entire face is red and remains that way even when Suki returns to the sitting room. She looks between her two fellow scholars with interest, but all Katara can do is shrug, her mouth partly open with baffled surprise.

It takes all of Suki’s talents for winning over a room and conversing easily with people in order to smooth over the situation and bring the room back into lighthearted candor. By the time the study session is over, the air is mostly clear and she shows Zuko and Katara to the door with bemused affection. Katara lets out a noise of surprise when Suki strong-arms her into a fierce hug and whispers, “Tomorrow, I want to know _everything_ ,” in her ear before she allows them to leave.

Zuko and Katara stand on the front porch of the Lin house in a somewhat awkward silence. He shuffles his feet around and scratches at the back of his neck again. Katara stares at his shoes and wonders how on Earth they are still so polished despite the nasty weather.

“I can walk you home,” he says after a moment.

Katara looks out at the clouds which threaten to dump a heavy, late winter snow on Kyoshi Island at any moment. “Please don’t feel obligated,” she replies.

“Oh, but I _do_ feel obligated,” he says with a wry lightness. There is something of a smile playing around the corners of his lips. “Sokka would never forgive me if I let you walk alone. Nor would my uncle.”

Katara laughs. “But do you _want_ to?” she queries, harkening back to her earlier words.

“I’d like to,” he says, not quite meeting her eyes. “That is...if you’d like to.” His rough voice seems almost shy, as though he is afraid of pressing his luck with her any further today.

Opening her mouth to reassure him that she’ll get home just fine on her own, Katara is surprised to find herself saying, “Yes. I think that would be fine.”

Zuko looks just as surprised as she feels, but his face dissolves quickly into a carefully crafted mask of impassivity. He beckons for her to leave the porch first, ever the gentleman his uncle tells him to be, and then follows after her. Katara is relieved to find that he does not offer her his arm or ask if he can carry her books. They pass the journey back to her home in relative silence save for a brief exchange on the impending snowstorm.

“I hope you can get back to your house before the weather hits.”

“I’ll be fine regardless. It isn’t far of a walk. Uncle will be sure to have some tea ready when I walk in.”

He doesn’t walk her to the door either, another relief for Katara who sees Gran Gran watching from the kitchen window, eyes bright with interest. Instead, he lingers by the gate as she unties and toes off her boots. Then, as she is opening the door, he calls out, “See you Monday morning!”

Katara turns to wave in return, but he is already walking away, white flurries of snow sticking in his black hair. She closes the door and looks at Gran Gran, already feeling exasperated by the twinkle in the older woman’s bright blue eyes. Gran Gran is wrist-deep in bread dough and doesn’t stop kneading even as she gives her granddaughter a half-smile that exudes the answer to a mystery only she knows.

“Was that Iroh’s boy?” she asks.

“Yes,” Katara says, warily eyeing her grandmother as she hangs up her coat and scarf.

“He walked you home from the Lins’?”

Katara splutters at the implication. “Only because he was there to study too!”

Gran Gran positively _cackles_. She wipes her doughy hands on a towel and throws it down on the counter before coming over to kiss Katara’s cheeks. Her hands smell dusty like flour and feel oddly smooth but dry.

“Oh, my dear,” she says. “The spirits certainly have something planned for you!”

“I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

Gran Gran pulls away and returns to kneading the dough on the counter, but not before she taps the side of her nose and sends Katara a wink.

* * *

The next day, Suki arrives after tea, a flurry of bright cheeks and snow-flecked hair, and whisks Katara up to the little gabled room. She shuts the door with a wide grin on her face and flops face up on the bed before she says to the ceiling, “Tell me _everything_ that I missed when I had to help Mother with the baby. I thought Zuko was going to burst into flames when I came back!”

Shaking her head, Katara crosses her bedroom to the window seat and makes herself comfortable, wrapping her arms around her knees and laying her cheek on them.

“I think he complimented me,” she says. “But I’m not sure he intended to.”

Suki rolls over and props her torso up on her elbows. “What do you mean?”

“He cursed Agni and apologized after he said it.”

“What did he say?”

Suki’s interrogation makes Katara feel that context is suddenly _very_ important, so she divulges the whole of the short exchange. When the story is over, Suki hums thoughtfully and taps her chin. Katara blinks at her, waiting.

“You aren’t wrong,” Suki says after a moment. “Aang does respond better to you. However, Zuko is also correct. Aang is a twelve year old boy. _Of course_ he responds better to a pretty girl who smiles at him than he does Zuko who _clearly_ lacks patience and scowls a lot.”

The implications about Aang’s motivations for learning grammar make Katara’s mouth go as dry as the Si Wong Desert in summer.

“This also means,” Suki says with a sly smile, “that Zuko seems to think highly of you. Mai will have a _fit_ if she finds out!”

Katara blanches and sputters. “The thought of being considered Mai Xu’s rival for the attentions of Zuko Himura is preposterous!” she nearly shouts. “I’m not even friends with him! I hardly _know_ him! You take that back, Suki Lin!”

Suki pins her with a stare, her starry gray eyes wide. “Would it be such a terrible thing if Zuko thought you had a nice smile?”

“I think I would prefer if he didn’t think of me at all,” Katara says primly.

The other girl scoffs. “If Zuko didn’t spare you a thought, it’s likely that neither of us would have been accepted into Mr. Tatkik’s Ba Sing Se Academy class. It would have been Zuko alone.”

“That’s hardly true,” Katara says. “We were accepted on our own merit.”

“Still,” Suki says. “If Zuko hadn’t tugged on your braid, you would have never broken your slate over his head and decided to compete with him for Mr. Tatkik’s approval.”

“Perhaps I would have,” Katara sniffs. “He has a very polarizing personality. I’m certain he would have done something else to merit a slate to the head.”

“What?” Suki says, a teasing lilt honeying her voice. “Like walking you home despite an impending snowstorm and the fact that your house is in the opposite direction?”

“That _was_ quite polite of him,” Katara says begrudgingly. “But,” she adds, straightening up, “I hope he does decide to court Mai Xu one day. Then they can be surly and sour together!”She laughs, waiting for Suki to join in, but is let down.

Suki only sighs and shakes her head.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Suki says. She flips onto her back and fixes her eyes on the ceiling. “I just hope you don’t come to regret that wish one day.”

Katara frowns and turns to look out the window. Below her, a smooth dusting of snow blankets the empty summer vegetable garden and the bare, reaching branches of the peach-apple trees in the orchard. She twitches one blue muslin curtain out of the way and looks further, past the hill on which Suki’s house sits, as if she can see the old Ozai place beyond. The very idea of Katara caring about Zuko Himura’s romantic interests makes her toss her head with derision.

There is no room for anyone tall, dark, and brooding in her castle in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I had so much fun writing it. Eager but awkward Zuko is perhaps my favorite. (Who am I kidding? I love all iterations of Zuko. He has one of the best character arcs of all time.)
> 
> As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!


	5. A Party at the Xu House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on updating this weeks ago, but then I fell into a different AU and wrote 25K words for a story that wasn't this one. Apologies for being terrible!

With spring comes a rash of birthday celebrations, the most prominent of which is, to Katara’s great displeasure, Mai Xu’s.

Mai passes around the invitations during morning recess at school, causing shockwaves when she not only invites the girls, but the boys as well. She is the first among the students to host a co-ed party. When she hands Zuko Himura an invitation, she does so with a small smile that makes something ugly and green coil in Katara’s stomach. She attempts to squelch it through a disdainful aside to Suki.

“She knows exactly what she’s doing.”

“What do you mean?” Suki asks.

“Passing out invitations to everyone at morning recess? She’s going to derail the rest of the school day!”

“What else can you expect from a Xu?” Suki says, rolling her eyes. “ _Of course_ she’s doing this right now. Especially since she’s also inviting the boys. Anything to make waves.”

Ty Lee bounces up to them then, her long, brown braid swinging. Her dress is a shade of pink that precisely matches the cherry blossom trees and there is a bright smile on her face. She, like Katara and Suki, is holding one of Mai’s party invitations in her hands.

“Isn’t it so exciting, girls!” Ty Lee gushes. “The first co-ed party that we’ll get to attend!”

“It’s thrilling,” Katara deadpans.

The smile on Ty Lee’s face falters. She almost looks wounded. “You don’t _look_ very excited, Katara.”

Remorse prickles at the back of Katara’s neck when Suki gives her a reprimanding nudge. Ty Lee is a harmless bundle of happiness and good tidings and they both know it.

“I’m not much one for parties lately,” Katara says by way of excuse and Ty Lee nods. She is all sympathetic understanding and it makes Katara indignant. She doesn’t want sympathy. She just wants her mother back.

“We’ll miss you if you don’t attend.”

“You might,” Katara says, patting Ty Lee’s hand. “However, I’m not certain Mai would.”

“Oh! That’s just not true!” Ty Lee exclaims. “Mai likes you well enough.”

Katara and Suki share a bemused glance before pinning Ty Lee with identical looks of skepticism.

“She’s just very fond of Zuko, you see,” Ty Lee hastens to add. “But she thinks that he might be fond of you.”

A bark of laughter escapes Katara’s mouth before she can even think to prevent it. “Well, she has no reason to worry, Ty Lee,” she says reassuringly. “I have no designs on Zuko Himura and I never intend to.”

“Well, you _are_ much nicer to him as of late.”

“Only because he’s chums with my brother and nothing more. It’s a matter of politeness. So you can reassure Mai that she has nothing to worry about.”

At that moment, Mr. Tatkik steps out of the schoolhouse to ring the bell. Katara flounces to the door, a whirl of blue skirts and brown hair that misses the way a pair of golden eyes watch her from across the schoolyard.

The rest of the school day is filled with too much talk of Mai Xu’s birthday party for Katara’s taste. She is grateful for the quiet commencement of Ba Sing Se classes once the rest of the students leave. It is a good session for her. Mr. Tatkik compliments her on her progress in languages and, thanks to the help that Zuko has been providing during Saturday study sessions at Suki’s house, she doesn’t struggle with the day’s set of arithmetic problems. So it is with a cheery disposition that she exits the schoolhouse with Suki and Zuko, her arm linked with her dearest friend’s.

“You _will_ go to Mai’s party, won’t you Katara?” Suki wheedles. “I don’t think I could bear to attend without you!”

“Ty Lee will be there,” Katara says.

“Yes, but _you_ know how it is with her and Mai. Anyone else is just the most useless third wheel.”

“I’m certain that there will be other people you like at the party.”

“It won’t be the same without my dearest friend,” Suki says.

“You may have to do without me,” Katara replies as kindly as she can.

“Will you be attending?” Suki asks, looking over her shoulder. Katara follows her glance.

Zuko, who had thus far been trudging along behind them in silence, looks at them with wide, bewildered eyes, as if he hadn’t expected his plans for party attendance to be taken into account.

“Oh!” he says. “Er… It’s the polite thing to do.”

Katara has to fight the urge not to roll her eyes. How she could have expected a better, more socially acceptable answer, she doesn’t know.

“It _is_ the polite thing to do,” Suki says pointedly, elbowing Katara in the ribs.

That it’s the right thing to do is a sentiment that Gran Gran wholeheartedly agrees with later that evening when Sokka mentions the party over dinner and Katara staunchly tells her brother that she has no intentions of attending.

“Of course you’ll be going,” Gran Gran says in a tone that brooks no arguments.

“But, Gran Gran,” Katara argues anyway. “I don’t want to spend an entire Saturday at the Xus’. They’re _Xus_.”

“Pish,” Gran Gran says. “Every society has a set of Xus and everyone in those societies deals with them as they must. You’ll attend the party and ignore the Xu-ishness with civility and good grace. Refusing an invitation is not neighborly. Even I make time to call on Mai’s mother every now and then.” Then, to Katara’s surprise, Gran Gran winks at her and tacks on, “Even if she _is_ an insufferable fool.”

Thus, Katara finds herself walking to the Xus’ elaborate, sprawling house on a Saturday morning that is sticky with spring humidity. Having to give up her traditional walk to Mother’s grave has put her in a considerably sour mood that is not helped by Sokka’s suspiciously good cheer and the gift tucked under her arm which she just _knows_ Mai and her mother will find fault with.

She’s able to put up with Sokka’s cheerful whistling and pebble kicking for most of the walk, but she stops him short just before they turn to walk down Mai’s street. Tugging her brother to a halt by plucking at the back of his shirt, she ignores his yelp of protest and glares at him.

“What do you have up your sleeve?” she asks.

Sokka’s eyes widen and he pulls away from her. “What?” he says. “Nothing! See?” And then he shakes his arms as if to prove to her that there is literally nothing up his sleeves.

Katara doesn’t laugh. Her frown deepens. “You can’t fool me, Sokka. You despise the Xus. Why are you so happy to be going to this party?”

It takes nothing other than a small pinch to Sokka’s upper arm to get him to cave, something he does with a dramatic sigh and a toss of his hands into the air.

“Fine! I’m not going to the party.”

Katara stares at him, aghast. “What are you talking about?”

“Look,” Sokka says matter-of-factly, “I have no interest in pretending to tolerate Mai Xu all day long. I stashed my fishing rod down by the river and that’s what I’ll be doing today after I stay a reasonable amount of time.”

“You can’t do that!” Katara gasps.

“And why can’t I?”

“Gran Gran will know!”

Sokka rolls his eyes. “No, she won’t.”

“Yes, she will,” Katara argues. “Mrs. Xu will tell her or she’ll tell someone else and word will get back to her.” She wouldn’t dare tattle on Sokka herself. She’s not that kind of sister.

“You just don’t want me to abandon you at this party,” Sokka says. “You think that if _you_ have to be miserable, then I should, too.”

“That’s not true,” Katara says defensively.

“Yes, it is,” Sokka says. “You can come if you want. We both know that the only person Mai cares about having there is Zuko.”

That ugly, green thing crawls its way back into Katara’s stomach and she kicks it aside with a haughty toss of her dark braid. “It’s a foolish choice, Sokka,” she warns. “You’re going to get caught.”

Sokka just shrugs. “If I do, I do. I’ll deal with the consequences.”

True to his word, Katara and Suki discover that Sokka is missing about two hours into Mai’s party, just around the time that one of Ty Lee’s older sisters starts up a game of daring others at the party to do things. Katara is chagrined when she tells Suki of Sokka’s plans and the other girl looks both jealous of and impressed with her brother.

“We should have gone with him,” Suki says behind her cup of punch. “This is unendurable.”

“Xu-ishness can only be tolerated for so long,” Katara concurs under her breath.

The spirits, Katara will later think, must have been listening to this exchange because it is at this point that Mai’s mother excuses herself from overseeing the party and the series of dares takes on a life of its own, as such games are wont to do when egged on by a person who relishes in putting her peers in what she deems their place.

One of Ty Lee’s sisters, who was just dared to climb the tallest tree in the yard, then dares Ty Lee to jump from the highest sturdy branch in the same tree. Katara finds herself gripping Suki’s arm in fear as Ty Lee accepts and performs the dare with nary a scratch or a rumple in her dress. Not for the first time does she find herself thinking that the Yoshida sisters must be acrobats. She’s only seen people with their kind of gymnastic ability when Mother and Father took her to the circus when she was small.

Ty Lee then dares Mai to walk the boards of the fence that rings the yard of the Xu house. Mai does so with nimble feet and a smug smile on her face—a smile that only grows smugger when Zuko Himura holds out a hand to help her down from the fence upon her completion of the dare.

“I bet she couldn’t walk the ridgepole of the roof,” Katara jokes snidely to Suki who muffles a smile behind her hand. Katara thinks the joke is quiet, but Mai is, unfortunately, in close enough proximity to hear it.

“Do it,” she says, turning her sharp, tawny eyes on Katara. “I _dare_ you.”

Katara freezes.

“Mai,” Zuko says, “that’s a dangerous idea.” His eyes dart from Mai to Katara in a sort of frantic desperation.

“No more dangerous than Ty Lee jumping out of the tree, and she did that just fine.” Mai folds her arms over her chest and continues to stare at Katara in a subtle challenge.

Rationally, Katara knows that Zuko is correct, but she isn’t the kind of person to back down from a challenge and Mai knows that for a fact. Her nostrils flare in defiance and she straightens her spine.

“Fine,” she says. “I _will_.”

There is a ladder leaning against the outer wall of the Xus’ kitchen and Katara makes her way over, head held high. When she begins her ascent, a pale hand reaches out to touch hers where it grips the ladder. Katara looks down into Suki’s upturned face.

“Katara,” she pleads, “don’t do it! This is _really_ dangerous. It rained this morning and the roof could still be wet.”

Katara looks over Suki’s shoulder and sees the challenge still clear on Mai’s face along with a hint of disbelief. She attempts to ignore the worry that is written plainly in Zuko’s eyes.

“I’ll be just fine,” she reassures Suki and then continues her climb up the ladder.

The problem, Katara realizes when she gets herself onto the ridgepole, is that the ground is a lot further away than she expected. She leans against the chimney for a moment, eyes squeezed shut, gathering her nerves. The shingles of the roof are damp, but the ridgepole is dry and warm from the springtime sun. That offers Katara a small bit of comfort and she opens her eyes, picking out a treetop to focus on as she holds her arms out for balance. There is nothing but silence from her peers down below and she dares not look down at any of them for fear of realizing just how high up she is.

Katara gets about halfway across the length of the roof before it goes wrong. She makes a small misstep when placing her left foot onto the ridgepole. Her foot slips from metal to damp shingle. It would have, perhaps, been a fixable mistake were the shingle not rotten and loose. There are a series of shrieks and screams as the shingle gives way and Katara tips and then tumbles off the roof.

What she expects is the collision of her body against the ground, some broken bones if not the end of it all entirely.

What she gets is the breath knocked out of her as she makes impact with something tall and hard and warm. Her vision explodes into stars that wheel and combust and there is a distinctly male grunt of pain as Katara and the tall thing finally hit the ground, a tangle of limbs and hair. Katara thinks that she smells cardamom, but maybe that’s the impending concussion.

The world blacks out for a moment before she is roused by the screams of some of Ty Lee’s older sisters. When she opens her eyes, she is staring at the blue sky and there is mud seeping into her hair. Someone’s legs are tangled with hers and when she tries to move, a large, warm hand presses gently at her shoulder, urging her to lay back down.

“Take it easy.”

That voice.

She _knows_ that voice.

Katara forces herself to focus.

Eyes like autumn sunlight. Black hair.

“What are you doing?” she groans.

“Saving your life.”

“Okay,” she says. “You’ve _saved_ it. You can _get off me_ now.”

Zuko scrambles away from her with a noise of embarrassment. “You’re _welcome_ ,” he says sarcastically.

Katara scowls in what she hopes is his direction. Two of his face swim before her eyes. “Don’t sass me,” she snaps back. “Go get my brother.”

“Sokka isn’t here,” Zuko says.

“He’s at the river,” says another voice, sweeter and gentler. Suki. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Zuko says. “I’ll be fine.”

“Can you go get Sokka?”

The two Zukos morph back into one as he nods and Katara has to squeeze her eyes shut. One of Suki’s hands grasps hers and Katara squeezes.

“Katara?”

“You were right,” Katara says remorsefully. “It was a foolish idea.”

Suki huffs a laugh. “Seems like the fall knocked some sense into you,” she teases. Then, much kinder, “Are you okay?”

Katara takes inventory of her body. She can feel the shock of the fall and collision throughout her bones and doesn’t doubt she’ll bruise. There is a knot at the back of her head, but the only real pain is in her left ankle.

“I think so,” she says. “Help me sit up?”

Suki helps her sit slowly, gray eyes wide with worry. A door slams in the distance. Mai’s mother rounds the side of the house, her face full of fury.

“What in the name of Agni is—”

Mrs. Xu catches sight of Katara at last and Katara muses that she must truly be a sight to see because the older woman lets out a horrified gasp and then promptly faints into her unsuspecting daughter’s arms.

It takes about thirty minutes before Sokka and Zuko come crashing through the trees. By this point, Suki has helped Katara to a chair and Mai has taken her mother inside to tend to her. The crowd of teens surrounding Katara parts for her brother and his friend. Sokka’s face is frantic as he kneels in front of her, running his hands over her forehead and cheeks.

“Thank the spirits,” he mutters. Then his face seizes up in anger and he rounds on Zuko, hands fisted at his sides. “What _happened?_ ” he roars.

Zuko is as equally rumpled as Katara. He is cradling his right wrist with his left hand. There is mud caked in his hair and all over his typically shiny shoes. His lower lip is fat and bleeding. There are spots of mud and blood on his white, collared shirt. When Sokka lunges at him, he takes a giant step backward and begins to stammer. Suki dives between the two boys, her face stern as she stares Sokka down, hands on her hips.

“He saved your sister’s life, _that’s_ what happened,” she says.

Suddenly, Katara can’t keep watching the scene. She fixes her eyes on her lap, too afraid of looking Zuko Himura in the eye. Suki’s words ricochet in her mind, pinging and zinging with a truth that stings when it bites into Katara’s conscience.

“Why was that even _necessary_?” Sokka’s voice has taken on that high-pitched quality that Katara knows means he’s verging on hysterics.

“Mai dared her to—”

“This is because of some stupid _dare?_ ” Sokka’s shoes turn to point towards his sister. “ _Katara!_ This is the most _ridiculous_ —”

“I think she feels bad enough,” Zuko’s voice cuts in. He sounds far more calm and composed than Sokka. “You don’t need to yell at her.”

Silence falls over the crowd and Katara hears more than sees the rest of the party’s attendees disperse. Sokka kneels before her once again, his hands encircling hers where they are fisted in the skirt of her ruined dress.

“Are you okay?” he asks gently.

Tears prick at the corners of Katara’s eyes and she sniffles before nodding. Embarrassment has fully set in now and she wishes more than anything that she could blame it on her rescuer as she has in the past. But she knows that this is far from his fault. Her own pride caused this disaster.

“I want to go home now,” she whispers to Sokka.

“Do you want me to get Father?”

“No!” she blurts out, looking at him with wide blue eyes. “No, I think I can walk. Just…can I lean on you?”

“Of course,” Sokka says. He hauls one of her arms over his shoulders and slings one of his around her waist. Then, he pulls her out of the chair and begins to help her hobble away from the Xu house. Before they leave entirely, he pauses and turns around. “Thank you,” he says sincerely.

Katara knows without looking that he’s speaking to Zuko.

* * *

Her left ankle is sprained. Miraculously, she doesn’t have a concussion. It sounds to Katara like she came out of the incident far less unscathed than Zuko Himura. He had looked awful. Father is furious with Mai’s parents, of course, and leaves to give them a piece of his mind once the doctor has looked Katara over.

Katara and Sokka get a story together on the long, arduous walk home that can cover up for the real reason why Sokka was missing during the accident. They both know that he’ll end up mucking out the barn for a month if Father knows that Sokka left Mai’s party to go fishing.

“I let Mai pressure me into performing a dare,” Katara says as Gran Gran helps prop her foot up. The doctor has ordered her to rest for three weeks. That means only the most minimal walking and no pressure on her foot, and _that_ means no school. Katara considers missing out on Ba Sing Se classes to be the most fitting punishment because the very idea of not being able to keep up on the lessons in person makes her feel perfectly miserable.

Gran Gran _tsks_ and pulls a blanket across Katara’s lap. “And where were _you?_ ” she says over her shoulder.

Sokka, who has been lurking nervously in the doorway of his sister’s room, jumps as though he didn’t realize their grandmother was aware of his presence.

“I was talking to some of the other boys on the opposite side of the yard,” he says. “I didn’t realize what was going on until everyone started screaming.”

“Then how in the name of La did you survive a fall off a roof with only a sprained ankle, Katara?”

Katara shrugs and stares mutely at her lap.

“Zuko tried to catch her,” Sokka supplies quietly. “I think he took the brunt of it. His lip was bleeding and I think he might have broken his wrist.”

His words are a knife to the gut, twisting into Katara’s intestines and radiating pain into her heart. The tears that were threatening to fall just before she left Mai’s house with Sokka well up in her eyes again and begin to roll down her nose.

“I trust you thanked him,” Gran Gran says. When Katara buries her face in her hands and lets out an audible sob, Gran Gran sighs and shakes her head. “Katara, I’m disappointed in you. You owe that boy a debt of gratitude. Without him, you would be _much_ worse off in this situation.”

She shoos Sokka out of the room and they leave Katara to her misery.

She knows Gran Gran is right, but it still takes Katara three days to work up enough courage to corner Sokka in the hallway before he leaves for school, clinging to her doorframe like a lifeline. She can’t look at him when she asks.

“Can you please ask Zuko to walk home with you after school?”

Sokka readily agrees and Katara spends the day practicing her words of gratitude in the mirror that hangs above her dresser. She makes sure to put on a clean dress and that her hair is braided neatly before it’s time for Sokka to get home. She hops her way down the stairs and into the kitchen where she waits on tenterhooks for her brother and his bright-eyed friend to come ambling down the lane.

But Sokka comes home alone and gives Katara a one-shouldered shrug.

“He has Ba Sing Se classes and then a dinner commitment with his uncle.”

“Did he say if he could come another day?” Katara asks.

Another shrug. “I didn’t think to ask,” Sokka says. “Look…” He scratches the back of his head and won’t meet Katara’s eyes. “He didn’t seem too keen on talking to you right now. Maybe he just needs some time. But Suki said she would come by on Saturday and help catch you up on everything you missed in Ba Sing Se class!”

Katara lays awake that night, staring at the ceiling and trying to puzzle out exactly why Zuko Himura would have a problem talking to her. _He_ wasn’t the one whose pride was wounded. _He_ wasn’t the one who would be facing worse ostracism from Mai at school.

Except…maybe he would. Mai liked him after all. And maybe he cared for her more than he let on? If he did, helping Katara would hurt his chances with Mai. Though why he would want a relationship with a _Xu_ was beyond her. Who would want to get permanently tied up in all that Xu-ishness?

Suki is of more help when she arrives the following Saturday morning to spend the day catching Katara up on lessons, her pile of books tucked neatly in her arms and a smile bright on her pretty face.

“Sokka didn’t ask him right,” she says as she flops onto Katara’s bed. “Don’t send a brother in to do the job of a friend.”

“What?” Katara closes the book she’s been reading, marking the page with her thumb.

“I was there when Sokka talked to Zuko. All he did was ask if Zuko had time after school. He never told him _why_.”

Katara groans and rolls her head back to thump against the wall.

“I know,” Suki says. “I talked to Sokka and got him to tell me what was going on. Then, I talked to Zuko for you.”

“Sokka says that he won’t speak to me.”

Suki scoffs. “That’s just not true. He couldn’t come with me today to help you catch up on things because he’s quite busy. He did ask me to tell you that he’ll come by as soon as he has a spare moment.”

Katara sighs, a modicum of relief easing into her body. “Is he alright?” she asks her friend.

“His wrist is injured, but he seems fine otherwise.”

“Is…” The next question doesn’t come as easily to Katara’s tongue. She plucks at a stray thread on her quilt, focusing on the little annoyance rather than Suki’s face. “Is Mai horribly mad at him?”

“Ty Lee says that Mai has resolved not to speak to him, but I’m not sure he’s aware. He seems rather oblivious to the fact that she fancies him. Some boys are so dense.” Suki mutters the last part more to herself than to Katara.

The blue-eyed girl eyes her friend, one eyebrow arched. “What was that?” she asks.

Suki’s cheeks flush and she shakes her head. “Nothing!” she says. “Shall we start with languages?”

* * *

Two weeks after the incident at Mai’s birthday party, another Saturday finds Katara lounging on the sofa in the sitting room, her foot propped up on spare cushions and a book draped across her stomach. She is basking in the springtime breeze that billows through the open windows on rays of sunshine. Daydreams weave their way through her imagination, as fanciful and fleeting as the scent of the blossoms on the peach apple trees down in the orchard.

Outside the window, she can see the rows of laundry that Gran Gran had hung on the lines before absconding to a ladies’ meeting. Katara watches the dresses and trousers flutter in the wind and wonders vaguely how long Sokka and Father will be in town today.

When her stomach begins to growl with hunger, Katara hobbles her way to the kitchen and sets about making herself a simple lunch that consists of a jam sandwich and some of Gran Gran’s cold potato salad. She is just placing the jar of jam back in the pantry when there is a series of smart, sharp knocks on the door. A glance at the grandfather clock in the hallway tells Katara that it’s too soon for Suki’s anticipated arrival. She gets herself down the hallway using the wall for support and opens the door to find Zuko Himura standing on her porch.

The first thing out of her mouth is a surprised, “Oh!”

Zuko gives her a small wave. “Hello,” he says.

“Good afternoon.” Katara eases herself around the door, very aware of her relaxed appearance. It’s laundry day, so the dress she is wearing is a little too old and a little too small. Her hair is unbraided and falls loosely down her back and around her shoulders. She hadn’t planned on properly dressing herself until it was time to study with Suki.

“Suki mentioned that you wanted to see me.”

“Yes.” Katara steps out onto the porch and closes the door. She motions to the chairs that her mother and father used to relax in after dinner every night. They have gone unused since her mother’s passing. “Won’t you sit down?”

“Do you need help?” Zuko offers her a hand and Katara thinks that she can see the edges of a bandage wrapped around his wrist.

“I’ll be alright,” Katara says. She eases herself into the chair closest to the door and Zuko takes the other, his back ramrod straight and his flat cap grasped tightly in his long, pale fingers.

“It’s a lovely day,” he says when Katara doesn’t speak.

“It is,” she agrees.

They fall silent again and Zuko clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Katara’s fingers nervously pleat the skirt of her old dress as she struggles to recall the words she had meticulously prepared last week. She is caught so off guard by Zuko’s unexpected appearance that everything she had wanted to say has left her memory and she is bereft of even a mediocre substitute. She eyes the edge of the bandage where it peeps out from beneath the hem of his shirtsleeve.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

Zuko looks at her with wide, gold eyes. “Pardon?”

Katara gestures wordlessly to his wrist.

“Oh. It’s nothing too bad,” he says. “A wrist sprain. But it’s not my dominant hand, so it isn’t too much trouble.”

“At least there’s that,” Katara says softly.

“How is your ankle?”

“It’s sprained as well, but it’s getting better,” Katara tells him. “I can return to school the week after next.”

Zuko nods and shifts his glance out to the road. When she follows his gaze, Katara sees that a buggy is waiting by the road, its emu-horse dancing impatiently in the dust. If she squints, she can see the shiny dome of a balding head.

“I’m keeping you from something,” she says.

“Uncle and I have some family matters to attend to,” Zuko answers.

“You won’t be coming over with Suki today, then?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Katara nods. Her fingers keep pleating her dress. La, it should be so much easier than this to swallow her pride!

The silence goes on a bit too long and Zuko stands. Katara scrambles to her feet as well, wincing when she puts too much weight on her injured ankle.

“I should be going,” he says.

“Right.” Katara swallows hard and watches as he steps off the porch, fitting his flat cap over his dark hair. He is nearly to the gate when she finally works up the nerve to call after him. “Zuko!”

He turns to her, squinting at her in the midday sunlight. Katara limps to the edge of the porch and loops her arm around one of the posts that hold up the roof.

“I want…” The words stick in her throat. “I wanted to thank you!”

“Oh,” he says, shuffling a few steps away from the gate. The distance between them seems like a chasm and she is tempted to meet him where he stands in the yard. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“Yes, I do,” Katara says. “If you hadn’t stepped in, I would have had much worse than a sprained ankle.”

Zuko shrugs and she thinks his cheeks color a little bit. “I just did what anyone else would have done,” he says.

“But nobody else did,” Katara presses. “So… Thank you. I owe you.”

Zuko’s eyes meet hers, bright and gentle across the distance that separates them. “Friends don’t owe each other things, Katara,” he says, sounding a little exasperated. “I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Then he tips his cap to her and exits the yard. Katara watches as he climbs into the waiting buggy with his uncle, keeping it in her sights until it has disappeared down the hill. She wonders if friendship is an appropriate thing to call it. She certainly hasn’t been anything other than cold to Zuko for months, holding an unfounded grudge despite the fact that he hasn’t been anything other than pleasant.

Katara finds her way back to her mother’s unused chair and sinks into it, sending up a silent prayer that her mother’s spirit can find a way to send her some much needed advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love moments where I get to meld ideas from the AOGG books with nods to Zutara moments from ATLA.
> 
> I'm hoping to update much sooner than I did this time, but I can make no promises. As I said above, I fell into a plot hole, started writing another Zutara AU, and haven't been able to get myself out. I'll be posting it as soon as I do some editing and figure out exactly where the story is going.
> 
> Up next, the Ba Sing Se entrance examinations, boats, and blunders. AKA Katara starts to get her shit together.


	6. A Series of Kind Gestures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Time for a little timebending. In this story, we are going to assume that the Ba Sing Se Academy classes (Queen’s classes in the AOGG books) are merely a prep course that is taken prior to the entrance exam. We are also going to assume that Pakku’s intense confidence in his own teaching skills as well as the skills of his three students means that he only dedicates a semester to these special classes. Also, Iroh is a little ahead of the curve here. The tea bag was first patented in about 1903 and this story takes place in the late 1800s. But Iroh is such a tea aficionado that it only makes sense that he would come up with the idea a little ahead of time.

Katara returns to school the following Monday morning. Due to the heavy spring rains and chilling winds, Father insists on driving her and Sokka as far as the school road. The three of them cram into the buggy and Sokka complains the whole way that Katara’s elbows are digging into his ribs and steps on her toes repeatedly. She ignores her brother’s complaints with an eager smile on her face and hops out of the buggy as soon as it rolls to a stop at the end of the school road, heedless of her ankle for the first time in a month.

“Be cautious of your ankle, Katara,” Father warns as he passes her the lunchpails.

“I will,” Katara says. She is feeling much more cheery than she would on any other early morning, the prospect of getting back into Ba Sing Se classes a bright lure.

Sokka dances impatiently from foot to foot under the umbrella. He is anxious to get out of the storm despite the fact that doing so means he has to go to school. His sister knows he is about ten seconds away from whining her name like a small, spoiled child who has been told he can’t have dessert. She steps under the umbrella with him and offers her father a happy wave of her fingers.

Father watches as the two siblings traipse through the grass that lines the sides of the muddy road. Katara turns to wave at him one last time before she and Sokka step between the tall pines and seek out the whitewashed schoolhouse. They are some of the last students to arrive this morning, though lessons have yet to start. The little building is rowdy with unsupervised children who, upon catching sight of Katara, all begin to welcome her back with enthusiasm. All except for Mai, who ignores her with a deliberate frostiness and sits in her seat with her eyes trained on the blackboard and her arms crossed over her chest. Suki elbows her way through a throng of younger students and throws her arms around the blue eyed girl.

“You act like you haven’t seen me in ages,” Katara laughs, returning the embrace. “We studied together on Saturday!”

“School hasn’t been the same without you, dearest,” Suki says, her voice low. “Mr. Tatkik actually considered moving Mai into your seat. Can you imagine how _dismal_ that would have been?”

Katara grins and links her arm with Suki’s. They walk down the aisle that divides the room in tandem.

“Well, I’ve returned,” Katara says. “So there’s no use dwelling on it.”

Her seat is littered with little trinkets and gifts from those who missed her. It is a far different welcome than the one at the beginning of the year. Perhaps because her life had nearly been in peril. Among other things, there is a handmade bookmark from Ty Lee, a questionably sticky peppermint candy left by little Tom Tom Xu, and Suki has tied together a tiny bundle of moonflower blossoms that sit in a spare bottle of slate water. When Katara sits down after thanking the peers who have left her tokens of their affection, Aang Park sidles up to her, his entire head a bright tomato red. He holds out a brand new slate pencil for her. It’s wrapped in yellow and orange striped paper.

“Those are my favorite colors,” he tells her. “I thought you might like them, too!”

Katara, who has never been particularly fond of yellow or orange, accepts the slate pencil with as much grace and dignity as she can muster, attempting to channel the princesses in her favorite fairytales.

“How kind of you to think of me,” she says. “It’s a lovely gift.”

Aang grins at her, a big, wide, toothy stretch of his mouth that seems to take up his entire face. He rocks from heel to toe and seems to be pondering further words. At that moment, though, Mr. Tatkik enters the schoolhouse and Aang goes rocketing back to his seat.

It could be that she imagines it, but Katara thinks that she sees Mr. Tatkik give her two infinitesimally small smiles of encouragement during Ba Sing Se class later that day. Those smiles set fire to her determination and she stays up far later than she should that night, working to go back over everything Suki had tutored her on the past few Saturdays. The chance to attend college burns like a bright star in the sky of Katara’s future and she will not let it fizzle out.

The next morning brings further rains and requires another drop off from Father. This time, Katara plunks into her seat next to Suki to find a tin box on her half of the desk. It’s a little battered and dented. The lid is tied down with a rich purple ribbon that is embroidered with the phases of the moon in shimmering gold thread.

“Suki,” Katara whispers, “is this from you?”

Her friend shrugs. “It was here when I arrived.”

“Well, who was here when you got here?”

“Most everyone,” Suki mutters. “I arrived just a few minutes before you.”

Katara doesn’t have time to explore the contents of the box until lunch. The rain keeps on pouring right through morning recess, so Mr. Tatkik plows forward with lessons. It isn’t until right before it’s time to break for the midday meal that the sun bursts suddenly through the clouds, flooding the gloomy room with golden light and inciting chaos as students rush for the door. Katara stays back in the empty schoolhouse for a moment, making sure she’s truly alone before she unties the bow around the tin box. The ribbon is finely made silk and Katara feels it will make an excellent hair ribbon, but it offers no clues as to the gift giver.

When she eases open the lid of the little tin box, a waft of cinnamon and cardamom washes over her and the mystery of the gift giver solves itself. Inside the box are many small sachets of what appears to be tea. Warmth pools into Katara’s chest and she does her best to ignore the way it floods into her stomach and makes her feel like there is a cluster of glowflies inside of her. She replaces the lid and reties the bow, then tucks the little container in her lunchpail and joins her brother, Suki, and Zuko for lunch.

Sokka and Zuko spend lunch in a heated debate over an adventure novel they have both been reading—some silly nonsense about a blue spirit. There is not a single break in their conversation that will give Katara a chance to thank Zuko for his generosity. Suki spots the tin in Katara’s lunchpail and leans in close to ask questions.

“Did you figure out who gave that to you?” she whispers.

Katara nods and gestures towards Zuko with her eyes, hoping that Suki understands.

She does. And she glances between Katara and Zuko with a smile that makes the tips of Katara’s ears burn.

“He only did it because other people gave me things yesterday,” she hisses. Thankfully, her words are lost to the boys due to Sokka’s emphatic shout of, “He uses _two swords_ , Zuko! Why use _two_ weapons when you could do just as much with _one_! Say…a boomerang?”

“A _boomerang_?” Zuko thunders. “Have you _lost it_ , Sokka?”

The debate quickly devolves into nothing but bickering at that point.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Suki whispers fervently to Katara.

“He told us he was going to Mai’s party because it was the ‘polite thing to do.’”

“It _was_. But this is _not_ the same.”

“You’re putting too much meaning behind this, Suki,” Katara warns.

“And you’re not putting enough meaning behind it,” Suki shoots back.

This should be Katara’s warning that Suki intends to meddle, but the brunette is so worked up over the whole ordeal that she ignores the sign. Thus, she finds herself staring, unamused, after her friend’s retreating back after Ba Sing Se class that afternoon.

“I forgot my lunchpail,” Suki says when she, Katara, and Zuko reach the end of the school road. There is too much drama in her voice for her forgotten lunchpail to be anything but intentional. Katara scowls at her. “You two keep walking. I’ll catch up!”

Katara watches her friend dash back towards the little footbridge in the trees, a moue of displeasure puckering her lips. She stands, resolute, at the end of the road, silently refusing to take one more step. The last time she was alone with Zuko Himura rings like shame in the back of her mind. Her stammering apology, his kindness in the face of her bumbling… She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. He is studying the dark clouds in the sky, concern creasing his brow.

“Thank you for the tea,” she says quietly.

“Of course.” He doesn’t look at her.

“I’ve never seen tea in individual bags before.”

A smirk plays with the left corner of Zuko’s mouth. “My uncle loves tea,” he says. “He finds it easier to brew and drink when it’s like that. No loose tea leaves in the cup.”

“That’s clever.”

“He’s a clever man.”

Katara scrapes her boot through the grass to knock loose some mud and searches her mind desperately for something to add to the conversation, but all she can come up with are impertinent questions. Things that she definitely should not ask.

Her mouth has other ideas.

“Is he your mother’s brother?”

Zuko cuts his eyes to hers and remorse washes over her along with disgust for her morbid insolence.

“No. He’s my father’s older brother.”

“Oh! But your last names…”

La, stop her!

“I use my mother’s name,” Zuko says curtly. “I don’t want to be a Sozin. I have enough reminders of my father.”

Katara thinks of the scar around Zuko’s left eye and has to swallow hard around the lump that forms in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It’s not my place to ask.”

Zuko waves a dismissive hand through the air and shakes his head. “You aren’t the first person to ask,” he says. “Most of the Sozins were cruel, intolerant people. But my uncle is a good person. I’m lucky to call him family and grateful for the way he welcomed me into his home.”

“He seems wonderful,” Katara says. She thinks of the portly man and how gracious he had been upon his intrusion in her home a few months ago. It’s hard to imagine him with a brother cruel enough to harm his own child.

“He is.” Zuko’s smirk returns. “If you ever need advice that is both excellent and cripplingly difficult to understand, he’s the precise person to ask.”

Katara can’t help the snort of laughter that leaves her nose. Nor does she miss the twinkle that lights Zuko’s eyes at the sound. Not for the first time does she recall Suki and Ty Lee’s insistence that Zuko is handsome, but she truly sees it in this moment—the small quirk of his lips; the sharp, angled planes of his face; the way his eyes burn with a unique warmth. All of this paired with a fierce, unbridled intelligence. Katara supposes that she can see the appeal of this tall, broad-shouldered boy.

Her heart lurches sharply in her chest and she feels the color drain from her face. Entertaining a friendship with Zuko Himura is _one_ thing, but thoughts like that are something else _entirely_ and Katara knows that those are thoughts that can destroy her castle in the sky. She cannot afford to sacrifice her ambitious little nest of adventure and dreams, so she resolves that any further thought on Zuko’s attractiveness must, from here on out, be of a purely objective nature.

Mother had helped her build the foundation of that castle and those fragile dreams are not something she is willing to part with.

* * *

Saturday study group resumes at Suki’s house and Mr. Tatkik extends Ba Sing Se classes to two hours a day. As the end of the school year approaches, so do entrance exams for Ba Sing Se Academy. Katara studies harder than ever before, boring Sokka with grammar rules and mathematics facts on their daily walks to school.

Two weeks before the exams, Mr. Tatkik sits the three students down for a practice test.

“I will score this as your future professors will,” he says before he drops a thick packet of papers onto each of their desks.

Katara has to wrestle with her intimidation over the sheer volume of knowledge the practice exam requires as she fumbles her way through it. She can feel the eyes of her grandmother’s old beau burning holes into the top of her head as her brain swims with ancient languages and historical facts. Every single trick Zuko has taught her for dealing with mathematical problems is put to the test. It is with great trepidation that she finally hands her packet in to the teacher. She hopes that Mr. Tatkik doesn’t notice the way her hands tremble.

He hands the exams back at the end of the week. When Katara has finally steeled her nerves enough to look at her score, her heart sinks.

“Mr. Tatkik all said we performed satisfactorily,” Katara says to Gran Gran and Father later that night, “but I have so much room for improvement!”

She is curled up near Father’s feet, her head resting against the side of his armchair. When he chuckles, Katara pins him with a look that contains all of the affront in her teenaged soul. Tugging on a lock of her hair, he sets the practice exam aside and tries to suppress his smile.

“This is a splendid score, my little koalaotter,” he says.

“It’s _not_ ,” Katara insists. “There will be so many other students from so many other schools. I need to have one of the highest scores, or I might not secure a place for myself. And it would be nice to impress the professors.”

“Now, you listen here,” Gran Gran says, casting her mending aside. Her eyes are flinty and unyielding as she stares her granddaughter down. “You are the smartest student at the Kyoshi school. Don’t let someone as foolish and old-fashioned as Pakku Tatkik shake your confidence, child. That man has stoked the fires of this silly academic rivalry between you and Iroh’s boy and it’s _absurd_. Don’t you dare determine your worth by the standard some old fool sets for you and stop using Iroh’s boy as a yardstick to measure yourself. You do yourself the favor of studying hard this week and then compete with yourself next weekend.”

Katara blinks at her grandmother, blindsided by the speech.

Gran Gran jabs a finger at Katara’s practice test where it sits, innocuous and unassuming on a side table. “Compete with that score, Katara, and forget about the rest.”

The concept sticks with Katara over the course of the next week. She trades flash cards with Suki and corrects Zuko’s work in his grammar book (though sometimes she can’t help but wonder if his errors are intentional because they seem so _foolish_ ). And Gran Gran’s words keep marching around in her head, an incessant circle of stern wisdom that she finds herself reluctant to heed because the shame Mr. Tatkik had heaped on her when Zuko had out-spelled her _months_ ago still burns like a beacon in her heart.

On Thursday night, Sokka comes to his sister as she is checking over her bag before her departure the next morning. He hefts the bag in his hand and frowns at the weight.

“Did you pack _rocks_ in here?”

“No,” Katara says defensively. She yanks the bag away from her brother. “Those are all of my books. I’ll need to study all day tomorrow so that I can be prepared for the test on Saturday.”

“Ohhh, no.” Sokka shakes his head and grabs the bag from her grasp. He wrenches it open and begins rummaging around.

“Sokka!” Katara protests. Those are her dresses and _underwear_ he’s digging through!

The older sibling slaps her hands away as he digs the books out of the satchel and stacks them in his arms. He also pulls a packet of papers from the depths. A cursory glance at them makes Sokka level Katara with a look of amused disappointment.

“Is this the practice exam?”

“Sokka, put my things back in the bag!”

“No,” Sokka says. “You just need to focus on relaxing tomorrow. If you spend all day cramming for the exam, you’ll push yourself too hard. What you need to do is just have fun with Suki.”

“I can’t afford to simply have fun with Suki,” Katara says. “I have to get the highest score, Sokka. I need to prove Mr. Tatkik wrong and I need to start working towards college.”

Sokka rolls his eyes and lumbers out of the room. She trots after him, protesting loudly as he opens a trunk in his room and chucks her books into is slovenly depths with absolutely no regard for their safety. He pulls a key from his pocket and locks the trunk. When Katara lunges for the key, he holds it up and out of her reach.

“Ah ah ah!”

“Sokka!”

“No.” Sokka grabs her shoulders and begins steering her back to her own room where he sits her down on the bed. He stands before her, arms folded over his chest. “It’s time for you to trust in your older brother, Katara. The best thing you can do for yourself tomorrow is enjoy your time in Ba Sing Se. It’s the first time you’ll be leaving Kyoshi Island and you deserve to enjoy every second of this experience. You won’t be able to do that if you have your nose stuck in textbooks the whole time!”

Katara scoffs. “I’ll just borrow Suki’s books, then. I know she’ll want to study, too!”

In the morning, Sokka leaves for school and Father and Gran Gran accompany Katara to the mainland on the ferry. The early morning sea wind is frigid as it nips at her cheeks and the chill still hasn’t quite left her bones when her father and grandmother envelop her in a hug at the train station. Through the tangle of limbs, Katara sees Suki waving to her near the platform, her forest green traveling dress a burst of vibrant color against the sooty station.

“Mind your manners,” Gran Gran says. “Compete with yourself.”

Katara’s chest twinges. She knows it’s not yet a promise she can make. The moment she sees Zuko Himura at the exam, she will dedicate herself to besting him without another thought.

“Alright, Gran Gran,” she says, voice muffled in Father’s shoulder.

He pulls away and places his hands on her shoulders. They are big and calloused from days working the land. His blue eyes brim with tears and he casts her a smile larger than even Sokka’s. “Don’t forget to thank the Beifongs for allowing you to stay with them,” he says. “And enjoy every moment of this.”

Katara grins and dashes into his arms for one final farewell. She feels Gran Gran’s hand smooth the hair at the crown of her head.

“I’ll see you both on Sunday,” she says, breaking away.

Running to Suki, she catches her friend up in a fierce hug, unable to contain the giddy laughter that bubbles up from her throat. Arm in arm, they gather their bags from the floor of the platform and clamber onto the train, stopping to wave one last time. As they do so, there is a cheery shout of, “Girls, wait!”

Ty Lee comes sprinting towards the train, her long braid trailing behind her like a serpent. She crows a loud greeting to Hakoda and Kanna as she darts past them and skids to an elegant stop before Suki and Katara where they lean out the door of the train. Her smile is bright as she gasps for breath. Her pink flowered hat is askew on her head.

“What are you doing here?” Katara asks, reaching to take Ty Lee’s bag so that she can board the train.

“Mother and Father said I could take the exam,” Ty Lee explains.

Together, the three girls seek out an empty compartment. They stow their bags on the overhead rack and collapse into the seats, a chorus of sensibly-colored skirts billowing up around them.

“Father said that he doesn’t care if Mr. Tatkik didn’t select me for the academy classes,” Ty Lee continues. “He says I’m the smartest of the Yoshida sisters and that I should at least give this a try.”

“That’s wonderful!” Suki exclaims.

“Where are you girls staying?” Ty Lee asks.

“Near the academy,” says Suki. “My mother has cousins who have agreed to board Katara and myself for the weekend.”

A pout purses Ty Lee’s lips. “Oh, you’re so lucky! I’m to stay with my oldest sister and she lives clear on the other side of town with her husband. I’ll have to be awake so dreadfully early tomorrow if I want to make it to the exam on time.”

“Did you bring your books?” Katara asks Suki. “Sokka took mine.”

Suki gives a dismal shake of her head. “I’m afraid not. Mother made me promise that I wouldn’t spend a moment studying. She thought it would make me overthink everything.” She heaves a sigh. “I’m certain she’s right, but it seems a shame to waste a day on _not_ studying. I don’t have the natural talent for this that you and Zuko have.”

“Both of you will do splendidly,” Ty Lee says. Her voice oozes confidence and she gives them a reassuring smile. “Mr. Tatkik has been preparing you for months!”

Outside the window, trees and mountains begin to flash past, the blur picking up speed along with the train. Ty Lee has brought with her all of the gossip she thinks that Katara and Suki have missed out on despite the fact that they attend school together and live in the same community.

“Oh!” she does say at one point, her gray eyes bright. “Did I mention that Mai will be sitting the exam tomorrow as well? She’s traveling up after school today.”

Katara and Suki exchange looks of skeptical surprise, eyebrows raised and mouths pulled into taut lines.

“It doesn’t seem that Mai would truly be interested in what Ba Sing Se Academy can offer her,” Katara offers up slowly. “Does she want to be a teacher?”

“Oh, no,” Ty Lee says with a wave of her hand. “It’s nothing like that. Mai doesn’t want to be a teacher and her parents don’t support her going to college. The three of us intend to attend the academy, though, and Mai doesn’t want to be left out.”

Katara wishes that she could believe the explanation. She’s certain that Ty Lee does. That ugly green thing that curls in her stomach, though, whispers that perhaps there is another reason that Mai Xu wishes to attend the academy. And it has nothing to do with the girls who would be attending without her.

The three friends while away the hours telling stories and napping. They purchase sandwiches from a lunch trolley and people watch through the windows of their compartment. Each takes a turn making up a backstory for every passenger that passes by. This one is a doctor on his way to woo an old sweetheart, that one is a young widow on her way to start a new life, the old woman with a stooped back is carting a basket of baked goodies to her grandchildren who she hasn’t seen in years.

“That girl,” Ty Lee says as a prim, proper young lady saunters past, her head held high, “has a positively mischievous soul behind all of those manners. I bet she has several beaus whose hearts she intends to break.”

“Speaking of mischief,” Suki says, turning her eyes to Katara. “You mustn’t be fooled by Toph.”

“Who?” Katara asks.

“My cousins’ daughter. She was born blind, you see, and her parents think her incapable of absolutely _anything_.” Here, Suki rolls her eyes. “But Toph is like a spark rock. She _looks_ completely innocuous, but she’s a spitfire. Don’t let her manners fool you. As soon as her parents leave the room, she’s an absolute _rascal_.”

The words are said with nothing but affection and Katara doesn’t know how to receive the warning.

“Her parents have no idea about her true nature and she prefers it that way, so don’t let them in on her secret.”

“She sounds dreadful,” Katara says and Suki laughs.

“Oh, it’s nothing like that! Toph is harmless. She just won’t be what you’re expecting and you should be prepared.”

* * *

When Katara, Suki, and Ty Lee step off the train, they find themselves immersed in a world the likes of which they have never before experienced. The station is swimming with people running to trains and into loved ones’ arms. There are half a dozen train whistles going off at any moment. Steam blasts through the crowds. Trunks and other assorted luggage are loaded and unloaded from trains with haphazardness. Outside the windows in the station which reach for the heavens and touch the floor, Katara can see the great city of Ba Sing Se, sprawling out in concentric circles, the streets teeming with buggies and people.

It doesn’t take long for Ty Lee to spot her oldest sister, a woman who looks identical to all other Yoshida sisters, through the crowd. Ty Lee bounces away, clasping her monstrously pink hat to her head and waving her hand in the air. Suki tows Katara toward the grand doors of the station where a man in a finely tailored, crisply pressed suit lingers. The long, thin mustache on his face reminds Katara a bit of two worms dangling from his nose and she has to suppress a giggle.

“Cousin Lao!” Suki greets the man. “How are you?”

“It’s wonderful to see you, Suki,” Lao Beifong says. He turns his pale green eyes to Katara and extends a hand. “You must be Miss Narvak.”

“Katara,” says the girl herself, reaching out to shake the proffered hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Beifong.”

“Poppy and Toph will be delighted to see you both.” Lao takes the girls’ bags in one hand and leads them through the door of the station.

“Oh, his mustache is just _dreadful_ ,” Suki comments to Katara under her breath. “I certainly hope that none of the boys we know ever think to adopt that style.”

Katara sniggers. “Could you imagine? Let’s never allow Sokka to meet him!”

Suki looks at her in horror as Lao helps them into the seat of an open carriage. He takes up the reins and it begins to roll down the streets of Ba Sing Se.

The trip takes them further to the center of the city, a few streets away from Ba Sing Se Academy. Here, the trees grow tall and green and the cobblestone streets are not pitted and loose. The houses only seem to grow grander with each turn of the wheels and Katara finds herself utterly breathless when Lao Beifong brings the carriage to a halt before a grand house hidden behind the weeping willows that stud its luscious green lawn.

If the front of the house is stunning, it is rivaled by its interior and pales in comparison to the back lawn. Katara marvels at the antique vases and furniture. Every alcove seems to boast a spray of fresh flowers and the ceilings reach so high that she has to crane her head to catch a glimpse of the fine moldings and chandeliers. Lao hands the two carpet bags off to a servant who takes them wordlessly up a mahogany staircase that is blanketed with plush pine-colored carpet.

Poppy Beifong, Suki’s mother’s cousin, sits in an airy conservatory that is tastefully decorated with fine furniture and bursting at the seams with plants of all kinds. Her hair is perfectly coiffed in the latest style and her modern jacket and skirt make Katara and Suki’s traveling dresses look ancient and dowdy in comparison. A fine, fragile tea set is laid out on the table, dwarfed by a delicious selection of tea cakes and finger sandwiches. Katara is so stunned by the grandeur of the Beifong estate that her eyes nearly skip over the small, pale girl sitting primly in a chair surrounded by potted plants.

“Welcome,” Poppy says, swooping in to kiss each girl on the cheek. She smells of expensive lotus perfume and her hands are smoother than those of anyone who lives on Kyoshi Island. “Lao and I are thrilled to be your home away from home during this…exciting time.” Her smile stiffens as she searches for the words.

“Katara and I are so grateful for your hospitality,” Suki replies.

The two girls follow Poppy and Lao’s lead, sitting across from the polished couple on a velvet settee that Katara cannot but help run her hand over discreetly.

“Mm,” Poppy hums, that odd smile still gracing her face. “Yes. Might I introduce our darling daughter, Toph?” She gestures a thin hand towards the girl who sits surrounded by plants.

“Hello,” the girl says demurely.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Katara says, Suki’s words of warning looming up in the back of her mind. This small, slight girl seems nothing like what she was expecting. Her slippered feet are crossed at the ankles and she nibbles delicately on a cookie, her frosted eyes cast to the side.

“Your mother says that you hope to attend college after completing your courses at the academy, Suki,” Lao says before sipping his tea.

“I certainly hope to,” Suki says.

“Hmm.” Lao cuts his eyes to Katara. “Is this also a hope of yours?”

“Oh, yes!” Katara says eagerly, ignoring the way Suki’s foot prods hers repeatedly. “I want nothing more than to achieve a B.A.”

“That’s quite…ambitious,” Poppy says. Tense lines crease the corner of her eyes. “I’m so grateful that we will never have to worry about that kind of ambition with our dear girl.”

Toph shifts almost imperceptibly in her chair. Her ankles uncross and she plants her feet firmly on the floor.

“Her condition will prevent her,” Lao explains to Katara. “We moved from Gaoling to Ba Sing Se in search of the best tutors and medical treatments for her and she’s been thriving ever since. But we would never send our darling daughter off to college. I don’t approve of it for young ladies even under the best of circumstances.”

Suddenly, Suki’s insistent foot nudging makes a lot more sense. Katara swallows down the words she wants to hurl at him in order to refute his statement. The room falls into silence. Katara cannot help but feel pity for the poor girl in the corner of the room.

“We thought we might take you ladies out to eat in the city tonight,” Poppy says after a moment or two.

“That would be delightful,” Suki says.

“Will Toph be joining us?” asks Katara.

“Oh, no.” Lao shakes his head and sets his tea cup back in its saucer with a clatter. “It’s far too strenuous for her.”

“I see,” Katara says.

“Toph?” Poppy calls. “Would you like to show Suki and Katara the grounds?”

“Of course,” Toph says in that same soft voice. “Will my cousin help me?” She holds a hand out into the air between her seat and the table and Suki stands to take it, shooting a look of amusement at Katara.

Katara follows Suki and Toph out the glass doors of the conservatory. The back lawn stretches before them as far as her eye can see. One gravel path cuts through the manicured grass to a pond and pagoda in the far corner. Several others wind through willows and flower gardens. Trees line the yard on three sides, towering so tall that Katara cannot see the neighbors’ houses beyond. The girls stroll through the yard and Toph eventually wriggles herself out of Suki’s grasp when they reach the seclusion of a copse of willows. She skips on ahead without them.

“Her parents are awful,” Katara hisses to Suki in her quietest whisper. “They speak of her as if she isn’t even in the room!”

“Terrible isn’t it?” Toph calls, her voice much louder and rougher than it was in the conservatory.

Katara startles and looks to Suki who is stifling a laugh behind her hand.

Toph’s face pops between the long, hanging branches of a willow, a sly grin stretched across her round face. The rest of her follows and Katara is appalled to see that Toph has shed her slippers and that her small feet are now covered in mud. It squelches through her toes as she walks.

“Don’t you dare get me roped into dinner, Sweetness,” Toph continues. She shoves a finger into Katara’s face with unnerving accuracy. “I have _plans_ tonight and I have no intention of those plans involving or being derailed by my ridiculous parents!”

“Toph!” Suki scolds.

“I know, I _know_ ,” Toph says. “They _love_ me. Well, I refuse to let their _love_ stop me from sneaking into the lower ring to see the boxing matches.”

Katara gapes.

“I told you so,” Suki says with a shrug.

Toph leads them through the willow branches to a stone bench. She flops down in front of it, legs sprawled out in an unladylike manner, pinky finger picking at something in her teeth. The older girls seat themselves on the bench.

“So,” Toph says to Katara. “You’re the one who filled my favorite cousin’s head with ideas of college?” Then she lets out a belch that rivals anything Katara has ever heard emit from Sokka.

“I suppose so?”

“Good,” Toph says with another grin. “You two must be spectacular friends for one another.”

“We are,” Suki says.

“Mother says that young ladies only want to attend college to catch husbands.”

Katara chokes on the air she’s breathing and Suki starts to laugh.

“I hardly think that’s our goal,” the gray eyed girl says.

“Is that so?” Toph asks, turning her frosted gaze to Katara.

“It’s certainly not _my_ aim,” Katara says loftily, turning her nose into the air. “I hope to earn my B.A., establish a career, and travel the world.”

Toph’s grin only grows wider. She digs in her ear with the pinky that had previously picked at her teeth and flicks a chunk of ear wax into the grass. “Oh, Sweetness,” she says deviously. “I’m quite fond of you already.”

* * *

Dinner that evening is an hours long affair, made only longer when the foursome runs into Iroh and Zuko on the polished streets of Ba Sing Se’s upper ring as they are walking to the restaurant. It is an awkward meeting. Zuko deliberately attempts to keep the left side of his face angled away from Poppy and Lao. Iroh prattles on about a tea shop that has left him nothing short of inspired. Katara’s stomach growls with persistent hunger as she stands arm in arm with Suki and tries to think of a way to cut the conversation short. Iroh’s geniality and gregariousness paired with Lao and Poppy’s politeness leaves no openings for the younger members of the group, though, and the conversation goes on unchecked for quite some time before Iroh finally remembers himself.

He doffs his hat and Zuko shifts beside him uncomfortably refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

“I wish you luck on the entrance examinations tomorrow, ladies,” Iroh says kindly.

Zuko and his uncle walk away together, headed in the opposite direction of Katara and Suki’s party. Lao and Poppy watch them go, curious expressions on their aristocratic faces.

“What an odd little man,” Lao says finally. He and Poppy lead the way down the street. “So fascinated with tea!”

“He farms it,” Katara volunteers. “And creates his own blends.”

“Peculiar,” Lao replies.

“And his son!” Poppy exclaims.

“Zuko is his nephew,” Suki corrects.

“That poor boy’s face. Did you see it, Lao?” queries Poppy. There is too much pity in her musical voice. The honeyed nature of it sinks under Katara’s skin like a sickness.

“Tragic,” comes the response.

Katara feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she bites back a sneer of disgust. Suki’s arm tightens around hers.

“He could have been such a handsome boy, but that scar just seems to dominate the whole visage.”

“There are many girls in school who find him quite handsome,” Suki says defensively, and Katara is glad that she isn’t the only one feeling protective of Zuko.

“Are there _really_?” Poppy exclaims, aghast. “How strange!”

“He’s incredibly nice,” Katara bites out with a frown. “And quite intelligent. I don’t doubt that he’ll score the highest on the academy entrance exam tomorrow.”

“Are you girls friends with this boy?” Poppy asks, looking at the Suki and Katara over her shoulder.

“Yes,” they chorus, backs straight and eyes steely.

Katara doesn’t miss the way Suki looks at her in surprise.

“I find it hard to believe that my cousin would approve of such a friendship,” Poppy says. “Why, he’s so taciturn! There is a complete lack of manners there.”

“My mother is quite fond of Zuko Himura,” Suki says smoothly. “He often comes over with Katara on Saturdays. The three of us study together.”

Poppy and Lao spend dinner in complete awe of Iroh and Zuko’s so-called peculiarities. As she eats her meal in silence, Katara thinks of the Beifong’s surprising daughter and her evening adventure into the lower ring to watch boxing matches. To think that such a spirit has found a way to blossom under her parents’ blatant ignorance astounds Katara. She hopes that, wherever Toph is at this moment, she’s enjoying herself without remorse.

* * *

The next morning, Katara an Suki ready themselves for the exam. With shaking hands, they help button each other into dresses and twine their hair into neat braids. Toph skips into their room, all smiles and bare feet, to recount her tale of the previous evening’s boxing match wherein some burly gentleman named The Boulder came out victorious.

“He’s a complete dimwit, of course,” Toph tells them frankly. “But if someone that lacking in brains can pummel another man to the mat, the two of you can demolish this test!” She punches a hand into the opposing palm, her grin turning somewhat feral.

Despite her nerves, Katara finds herself laughing at the younger girl’s antics and reaches to pull her into a hug which is promptly refused.

“No,” Toph says, her blind eyes stern. “I don’t do hugs, Sweetness.” Instead, she slugs both Katara and Suki in the shoulder and then saunters out of the room, a whistle on her lips.

Lao drives the girls over to Ba Sing Se Academy in his carriage. They watch the school rise up over the city, its bookish towers and ivy-covered brick walls grandiose in comparison to the little Kyoshi schoolhouse they’re used to. Scads of students crawl the lawns chattering with excitement and nerves. Professors are filing into the building with worn leather bags and boxes full of supplies. Katara’s knees turn to jelly. She can feel what little she ate of her breakfast threatening to make a reappearance.

“Katara!” Ty Lee shouts. “Suki!” She stands under a towering oak tree with Zuko Himura, her pink dress standing out amongst the somber ensembles of the other students. Her easy smile is at complete odds with the tone of the day.

“Isn’t it just thrilling?” she gushes when the girls approach.

Suki, looking a little green, shakes her head. “I’m dreadfully nervous.”

“Oh, don’t be so gloomy, Suki. It’s exciting just to _try_!”

Mai Xu joins them not long after. She casts a disparaging look at Katara and Suki’s dresses, but says nothing to them. Like Poppy Beifong, Mai is dressed in the latest style, her smart jacket and skirt complemented by her updo.

“She looks absolutely silly,” Suki tells Katara as the doors open and a professor calls them all in. “She isn’t even _old_ _enough_ to wear her hair up yet!”

“Xu-ishness in the extreme,” Katara replies with an eye roll.

“To be sure.”

The mob of students bottlenecks at the door and a professor has to come out of the building to urge everyone into a line. A light but deliberate brush against Katara’s elbow is enough to make her turn around. She finds herself blinking up into Zuko’s scarred face.

“Good luck today,” he says quietly.

The nerves in Katara’s body barely let her eke out a smile. She manages one, but can’t help but feel that it comes out more like a grimace. “Thank you,” she says. “Good luck to you as well.”

His mouth twitches. “I’ll need it. I know that you’ll be giving me a run for my money today. I don’t stand a chance.”

“Don’t be so sure. Sokka stole my books from me. I didn’t get to study yesterday.”

“Uncle wouldn’t let me study either,” Zuko says.

“Well, at least we’re on equal footing then.”

His answering chuckle is nearly all Katara can think about for the first thirty minutes of the exam.

* * *

“I did just dreadfully. I _know it_ ,” Ty Lee sighs as she boards the Sunday morning train with Katara and Suki. “Oh, I shouldn’t have even _tried_.”

“Mr. Tatkik has extraordinarily high standards,” Katara tells her soothingly. “I’m certain you pulled through just fine even without the extra classes.”

“I hope so.”

It is such an anomaly to see Ty Lee gloomy that Katara begins to chatter her ear off about a cute boy that had been making eyes at her during the test breaks. Hearing of his interest perks Ty Lee up marginally and she is beginning to look a good deal more cheerful as the train pulls away from the station.

“He _was_ quite handsome,” she says eagerly. “Do you think he’ll attend the academy? I certainly hope he does! It would just be so _fun_ to have scads of beaus while doing all of that dull work!”

Suki and Katara’s answering laughter is cut short when the door to their compartment rolls open with a loud thud. A large bag is flung onto the empty set next to Suki and the three girls find themselves staring open-mouthed at Toph in all of her grubby, bad-mannered glory.

The train is moving rapidly now and Katara sees Suki’s face fall into horror.

“Toph!”

“Make room, ladies.” Toph shoves her bag into Ty Lee’s arms and flops down next to her cousin. “Put that on the rack, would ya, Perky?”

“What are you _doing_ here?” Suki hisses.

Toph shrugs, picking at the dirt under her nails. “Running away from home,” she says.

All Katara, Suki, and Ty Lee can do is stare at her, utterly mortified.

* * *

“Mother says that Poppy and Lao are absolutely furious,” Suki says a few weeks later. “And Toph has absolutely no care in the world.”

“That’s simply not true,” Toph counters. She has her skirts tied up and is wading in the muddy banks of Shimmering Shoals, the large pond that divides the Lin and Sozin properties along their furthest borders and thusly nicknamed during Katara and Suki’s youth.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Suki says caustically. “Toph cares. She cares about having fun regardless of the consequences!”

Toph snorts. “You sound like Sweetness.”

Katara looks up from the book she is perusing, affronted by the accusation. Ty Lee is perched next to her on the picnic blanket. She and Suki had conspired to prevent Katara from haunting the post office the way she has been since school let out. With each day that passes, the blue eyed girl becomes more and more worried about the Ba Sing Se Academy entrance results. It is a miracle that her friends persuaded her to come laze about the pond at all.

“I do not sound like that!”

“Yes, you do,” Toph says. “You’re incredibly bossy.”

Katara scowls and casts her book aside. She begins considering breaking away from the group and making the journey to the post office. But the early summer winds are sweet with the scent of flowers and the sun’s warmth has made her lazy.

“Your parents are preparing themselves to come here and get you,” Suki tells Toph. “Relish in your freedom now.”

Toph scoffs and stomps her feet in the water, splashing mud across her tied up skirts. “They won’t do it. Your mother was always the more reasonable one. She’ll talk them out of it and persuade them to let me stay.”

“You think that’s _reasonable_?” Suki says, incredulity dripping from her words.

“Hm. Maybe reasonable isn’t the correct word,” Toph says. She bites out a toothy smile. “More…free-spirited. Your mother understands in ways that mine doesn’t, Suki.”

Suki grumbles as she settles herself next to Katara on the blanket. “Well, you’re lucky for that, Toph Beifong.”

She sets about unbraiding Katara’s hair, combing her fingers through the thick waves and tucking tiny purple wildflowers among the strands. As Toph continues to play in the mud and water, Ty Lee picks up Katara’s abandoned book of poetry and begins to peruse it, her pretty face pensive as she flips through the pages.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaims. “‘The Fire Lily Maid!’”

Katara smiles at her. “That’s my favorite poem in that book.”

“Mine too,” Ty Lee agrees. “It’s _so_ romantic!”

Toph makes a noise of disgust. “Eugh. I never want to grow up if this is what I have to look forward to.”

“Oh, but it’s tragic, too,” Ty Lee reassures her, clasping the book to her chest with dreamy eyes. “It’s all about Tsukiko and her unrequited love for the knight Daichi. She asks him to wear her colors during a jousting tournament and he’s injured. After she nurses him back to health, he leaves to continue his affair with Queen Airi, despite knowing of the way Tsukiko feels for him. She dies not long after of a broken heart and her body is sent down a river, a fire lily in one hand, her last letter to him in the other.”

Wrinkling her nose, Toph shakes her head. “There is no romance in that, Ty Lee. That poor girl dies because some blockhead doesn’t return her feelings? That is _nothing_ but tragic. What a fool!”

Ty Lee frowns, studying the smooth leather cover of the book. When she leaps to her feet, a sparkle in her eyes, it catches all three of her companions off guard.

“Let’s play it out!”

“Are you six years old?” Toph exclaims, her arms akimbo.

Katara, seeing the hurt on Ty Lee’s face, shoots Toph a glare that the other girl doesn’t see. “That’s a splendid idea, Ty Lee,” she says kindly. “It’ll be just like old days, when we were kids.”

“You should be Tsukiko!” Suki chimes in.

Ty Lee shakes her head vehemently. “Most certainly not!” she says. “I don’t know how to swim. And pretending to be dead would just be _dreadful_.” A shiver wracks her body. Her gaze lands on the rowboat which bobs a ways down the shoreline. “Toph should do it. She’s the smallest of us. She’ll be able to lay in the boat with no problems!”

“That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard!” Toph says cheerfully.

“Do you think so?”

“Yes! Put the _blind girl_ in a _boat_ and send her _sailing across a pond_.”

Ty Lee falters. “Oh.” She looks so crestfallen that it makes Katara’s heart hurt.

“Suki can do it,” she suggests, but Suki shakes her head.

“I can’t. I promised Mother that I wouldn’t allow Toph out of my sights while we’re by the water.”

This is how Katara finds herself climbing into the Lins’ rowboat, a red bloom scrounged up by Ty Lee clasped in her hands and the picnic blanket draped over her body.

“The current will carry you south towards the road,” Suki says reassuringly, a hand bracing the boat in place. “It’s moving fairly quickly today, so we should see you again in less than fifteen minutes.”

When Katara gives her acquiescing nod, the other three girls heave the boat into the depths of the pond. She can hear their footsteps thundering away as they race along the shoreline to the road.

For a while, Katara drifts along in the boat, the lapping of the waves against the wooden boat lulling her into a state of calm. With the warmth of the sun on her face, the smell of wildflowers in her hair, and the sound of the water flooding her senses, Katara allows her frazzled mind to slip into peace.

After some number of minutes, things in the boat start to feel damp.

 _Too_ damp.

Katara scrambles to sit up and stares in horror at the inches of water that drench her clothes. She can see where water continues to bubble up through the hole in the bottom of the rowboat

“Oh, for the love of La!”

She is in the middle of the pond, the boat is _sinking_ , and she is utterly without oars because Ty Lee had removed them in order to make room for Katara to lie down. Her heart hammering in her chest, Katara uses her hands to haphazardly paddle the boat towards the bridge that crosses the pond, praying to the spirits all the while that she won’t be forced to swim the distance.

In the nick of time, she comes close enough to one of the bridge’s supports to grab ahold of it. Wrapping her arms around her lifeline with everything she has, Katara watches the rowboat sink dismally beneath the rippling water not ten feet away. She groans and squeezes her eyes shut. Curse her bleeding heart and Ty Lee’s imagination!

Clinging to the wooden support, Katara frantically looks around for a way out of her quandary. The shores of the pond are far away and there are no footholds on the pillar. It seems that she has no recourse but to wait for some kind person to cross the bridge and come to her rescue.

 _If_ someone crosses the bridge.

The thought fills her with dread.

Hardly five minutes later, when she’s considering making a swim for it, Katara’s heart skips a beat as another boat rounds the bend in the pond. Someone is here! She’s saved!

Golden eyes and an amused smirk greet her and she has to force herself not to cry from the frustration that floods her system.

Why is it always _Zuko_ who comes upon her in such embarrassing predicaments?

“Katara, what in the name of Agni are you doing?” he asks as he pulls up alongside her, bracing a hand above hers.

She straightens her back and holds her head high, arms tight around the bridge’s support. “Going for a swim,” she says haughtily.

He actually _chuckles_.

“This _isn’t_ funny,” she snaps.

“You’re right,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender. “It’s not funny.”

Except then he chuckles again!

Katara levels him with her most dignified glare, but much of the effect is lost behind the wet strands of her hair which hangs limply in her eyes.

When Zuko finally stops laughing at her expense, he extends his hand. “Would you like a lift?”

Reluctantly, Katara accepts his hand and he tugs her into the boat. She sits there across from him, dripping pond water everywhere and feeling nothing short of absolutely miserable.

“Where to?” he asks.

“Towards the road, please. The others will be waiting for me there.”

Zuko rows them in her preferred direction in silence. It would be almost tolerable, Katara muses, if he wouldn’t keep looking at her with that smirk on his face.

By the time they get to the little dock some yards away from the road, Katara is well and truly perturbed. It’s with a heavy heart that she allows Zuko to help her out of his rowboat and onto dry land. Her friends are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they have not arrived yet. Maybe Toph derailed them with some unexpected mischief.

Katara sighs and shoves the soaking stands of hair out of her face. A couple of little purple flowers stick to her hands. “Thank you for your assistance,” she says politely. Then, she stalks past Zuko towards shore.

“They posted the exam results,” Zuko calls after her.

Katara is positive that the world stops moving. She turns back to face him slowly. The smile that plays about his lips sinks her heart into her stomach faster than the Lins' rowboat went under the waters of Shimmering Shoals. All she can think of is the way his laugh had ruined her for the first portion of the exam.

“Congratulations on coming first,” she tells him stiffly, turning away.

“Katara, wait!” His fingers close around her wrist, gentle and warm. Katara feels that familiar shock of electricity sing up her spine and allows her eyes to meet his, albeit reluctantly. “We tied for first,” he says, thrusting the paper into her hands. “They even printed your name before mine.”

She stares at her name on the paper, printed, as he said, just above Zuko’s. Their score is exactly the same. Suki’s name falls a few spaces down and Ty Lee even does respectably despite not being part of Mr. Tatkik’s extra classes. Mai’s name is printed near the bottom of the list, but it’s there just the same. Katara, were someone to ask, would admit a begrudging respect for this, despite Mai’s Xu-ishness. She can imagine how hard the exam must have been without any preparation.

Giddiness tickles her insides and she hopes that Zuko doesn’t notice the tremor in her hands when she holds the paper out to him.

“You can keep it,” he says. “Share it with the others.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Katara tucks a dripping lock of hair behind her ear and rocks from heel to toe, eager to find Suki and Ty Lee. Before she leaves, she adds, “If I had to tie with anyone, I’m glad it was you. At least I know you put up a fight.”

Again, she turns to leave, her shoes thunking against the wooden planks of the dock.

“Katara, wait.”

This time he grabs her hand. She looks at him, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, and is surprised to find that his face mirrors hers.

“Are we _ever_ going to be friends?” he asks. “Because I don’t know how else to—”

She squeezes Zuko’s hand and it stops him mid sentence. His confusion shifts to wide-eyed bewilderment.

“We’re friends, Zuko,” Katara says softly. “Just don’t ever _let_ me win.” She brandishes the page of results in his face and winks.

“I’ve never _let_ you win,” he says.

“I know,” Katara replies. “Don’t start now.” She drops his handby and hooks a thumb over her shoulder. “The others will be waiting for me.”

“Oh,” he says. “Right.”

Hoisting her damp skirts to free her legs, Katara begins a lively sprint back towards Suki’s house, her feet squishing unpleasantly in her shoes.

“I’m glad we’re friends!” Zuko hollers after her.

Katara pauses a moment, shoots him a breathless smile. “Me, too!” she yells back.

Then she’s off like a lightning strike, her feet pounding over the grass, her heart thudding in her chest, the smile growing wider on her face as she runs.

She finds Suki, Toph, and Ty Lee sitting on the front steps of the Lin house. Ty Lee is sobbing hysterically and Toph looks entirely too much like the cat that got the cream. Suki is patting Tu Lee on the back and muttering kind words.

“I _killed_ her,” Ty Lee wails. “It was _all my idea_ and it _got Katara killed!_ ”

“I think you’ll find I’m very much alive,” Katara announces, plopping down on Ty Lee’s free side.

Her surprise arrival sparks a new wave of tears that are accompanied by a rueful smile and a hug that nearly squeezes the breath from her lungs. When they’ve calmed Ty Lee enough that her tears are reduced to the occasional hiccuping sob, Katara shares the list around and it’s a cause for celebration. Suki darts into the house and returns with a plate of cookies and a pitcher of lemonade.

“How did you come across this list?” Ty Lee asks as they all tuck in. “You’ve been with us all day!”

Katara feels her cheeks color with embarrassment. “Zuko is the one who rescued me from the pond,” she admits. “He happened upon me and had the list with him.”

“Does this mean you’ll be friends with him now?” Suki asks. “There’s only so many times he can do something extraordinarily nice for you and be rebuffed.”

Katara smiles, hearing the light teasing in her dearest friend’s voice, and bites into a cookie, savoring the sweetness on her tongue. “Yes,” she says. “I will.”

She sits with her friends for the remainder of the afternoon, heedless of her drenched clothes and the way her hair smells of pond water. Summer days stretch out before her with the promise of Ba Sing Se Academy at the end. Beyond that, college shimmers like a dream soon to come true and Katara’s castle in the sky solidifies just a little bit more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. This was way longer than I expected it to be! Nearly 10,000 words, but I couldn’t find a satisfactory way to cut it into separate chapters without giving you a whole lotta nothing and then a whole lotta EVERYTHING. I blame Toph. She entered the story and completely commandeered it. I mean, truly. The moment I realized I was going to introduce her to the story here, this thing took a turn that I didn’t exactly hate and then just. kept. GOING.
> 
> As always, I love hearing what you think! And thank you for all of your support thus far. :)


	7. The Last Summer Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. I'm SO sorry! Between falling down other plot holes, dealing with life in the States (I see you trying to make things better already, Joe Biden!), and other obstacles, I ended up losing a good portion of this chapter and needing to essentially start from scratch. This story requires a lot of joy for me to write and I just hadn't been feeling it for a few months there, so this took me...a while.
> 
> I'm finding my way back to myself, though. And while updates may continue to be sporadic, but you WILL continue to hear from me. I have NOT forgotten this little story! It is still near and dear to my heart. In the meantime, I've posted some other Zutara things that you can venture over to read if you want. :)

Katara’s last girlhood summer on the Kyoshi Island drifts by slowly in a haze of sunny days that incite adventures over and around the island in the company of Suki, Toph, and Ty Lee. Toph is a grubby, loud addition to their little trio, but Katara is surprised to find that none of them mind her presence. She grows to appreciate Toph’s frankness and wit, two things made all the more surprising by the younger girl’s age and upbringing. Toph has a talent for ingratiating herself with her elders, specifically Zuko’s uncle Iroh who frequently has her around for tea. Though the weeks wear on, the mystery of how Toph and Iroh met never gets cleared up.

Zuko also develops a fondness for Toph, something he divulges to Katara one Saturday morning as they loiter outside the creaky gate of the seaside cemetery. Now that they’re friends, he seems to show up with more frequency. They keep their graveside pilgrimages separate, but more and more often begin to spend time together after paying their separate respects.

“She’s rough and tumble,” Zuko says with a small smile, “but she’s brought Uncle Iroh a lot of joy. And she makes me laugh. It’s like having a sister.”

“You have a sister, don’t you?” Katara asks.

It’s the wrong thing to say. A peculiar cloud passes over Zuko’s face and his smile vanishes under its weight. Katara swallows her remorse hard. He’s a nice person—nicer than their first interactions let on—and she finds that she enjoys his company far more than she expected to, but she’s still learning his moods and quirks. Family is always a touchy subject for Zuko. He can while a day away talking about Iroh and quoting the man’s funny little proverbs, but Ozai is decidedly not a welcome topic of conversation. Memories of his mother he keeps sheltered in the shadows of his hurt. If Katara wants to know more about Ursa, she knows that she must either be willing to share a memory of Kya first or keep her curiosity in check.

Zuko’s sister, it seems, falls into a category much like the one he keeps Ozai under.

“Azula isn’t,” he begins, falteringly, and Katara squirrels the name away for a later day. He coughs and clears his throat. “I haven’t had a sister since my mother died. I  _ did _ , but... Azula was never the same. I haven’t spoken to her in quite a while.”

Katara is burning to know how long quite a while is, but she knows better than to press her luck. This is as much as she will get from him lest she make him cross and she knows it. Instead, she begins to walk away from the gravity of the graveyard, knowing that Zuko will stay by her side as he does every Saturday they cross paths. Perhaps a change in scenery will bring some levity back to their discourse.

On her walk from home this morning, Katara had filled her wicker basket with blooms for her mother, now she takes moments to pick some for Gran Gran. Zuko dawdles in her wake. He doesn’t speak, but the pall eventually vanishes from his countenance. Katara takes this as a sign to speak again, silently envying the way Sokka so easily keeps things light with Zuko. The older boy always seems to smile and laugh more when her brother is around.

“Have you spent much time with my brother lately?” she asks. “He asks about you. On Saturdays. I’m beginning to think he’s feeling neglected.”

“Oh! Er...”

She watches out of the corner of her eye as Zuko brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck. Genuine confusion paints itself across his face.

“I haven’t spent much time with him lately, I suppose. I hadn’t even realized.”

He leans down and plucks a handful of white and blue flowers from the side of the road, holding them out for Katara’s approval. She looks them over with a smile and adds them to her basket.

“Gran Gran will love those,” she says, missing the crestfallen look on his face.

They amble in companionable silence, taking a short detour to the oceanside cliffs. The breeze is gentle today, ruffling the long blades of grass that grow wildly amongst the sparse tree trunks. Zuko leaves Katara to admire the view by herself for a few moments before returning with two plump, ripe moonpeaches. They exchange a series of laughs when they bite into the fruit and juices dribble down their chins.

“I had no idea there were moonpeach trees this close to the ocean,” Katara says, wiping her chin with the back of her hand.

Zuko produces a handkerchief and passes it off to her so that she might wipe her hand clean. “There’s just one,” he says. “It’s hidden back in a little row of pines. Not easy to find. I wasn’t certain it would be fruiting, I hadn’t even seen it flower, but it was.”

Katara hums in appreciation. “They’re sweet,” she says before sinking her teeth into the pale white flesh of the fruit.

They sit together for a while, enjoying their snack and the view of the sea. As they’ve spent more time together, the more comfortable the silences and the conversations have become. Though she still finds it tricky to understand the peculiar shifts in Zuko’s temper, Katara has come to realize that many of their ideals align and that they are not entirely dissimilar in nature as she had once thought. Zuko is just as prone to deep thought and sparks of spirit as she is, and they’re learning when to goad one another on and when to help curb any moments of strife. It is tenuous and slow, oddly challenging in a way that is almost like academic studies—but decidedly not academic at all.

Zuko speaks of the world in terms of a strict code of ethics. He places a lot of value on living by a certain set of honorable ideals. While these constrictions don’t allow him the flights of fancy that Katara knows she, Suki, and Ty Lee are sometimes prone to, he has enough scope for imagination that his admittedly practical dreams are quite big.

She rather likes having that unique quality in a friend.

“Would you and Sokka like to come around for tea today?” he asks as they traipse away from their peaceful ocean view.

It isn’t the first time Zuko has made this invitation and Katara knows she must accept it soon or risk wounding him, but he seems to have a knack for picking the worst afternoons and this one is no different.

“I’m spending the rest of the day in town,” she explains. “Father is so proud of my acceptance into Ba Sing Se Academy that he’s agreed to allow me to have some new clothes made up by the seamstress.”

A frown pinches Zuko’s brow and he studies her dress. “What’s wrong with the clothes you have?” he queries with all the air of Sokka and Gran Gran, neither of whom supported Hakoda’s willingness to indulge Katara despite the occasion.

Katara smoothes a hand over the bodice of her lilac dress, fingers tracing the seams her mother had so lovingly stitched over a year and a half prior. It’s sad to think she soon won’t have a use for the pretty things her mother had made and sadder still to know that her mother will not be there to help her select fabrics and patterns for her new clothes. Another new phase of her life is starting. She can’t help but wonder if she will ever stop thinking in terms of Before and After. Will the oddly empty feeling that accompanies each new chapter of her life ever make itself scarce?

“I can’t attend the academy looking like a child,” Katara says, holding her chin aloft to batten down the sadness that has engulfed her heart. “I’m  _ not _ one.”

“No,” Zuko agrees in a quiet manner. “You aren’t.”

There is an odd look on his face that causes a funny frisson of  _ something _ to shiver through Katara’s heart. It raises an alarm in her head and she hurriedly attempts to divert the situation.

“Besides, it simply won’t do to look like a frumpy country bumpkin in polite society! Suki and I felt like such odd ducks when we stayed with her cousins to sit the exams.”

Zuko must read something in her tone or the set of her jaw because he says, “I know my opinion doesn’t matter, but I don’t think you ever look frumpy.”

It isn’t enough of a divergence. Katara swerves hard into other territory.

“Do you intend to take your academy courses in one year or two?” she asks as they round the corner onto the shady lane her family’s house sits on.

“One,” he replies. “I hope to attend law school after university and would like to have as many accomplishments as I can to impress on my applications. Will you take them in two?”

“No. I’m taking the year-long course as well. Two seems too easy to be a real challenge.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Zuko says with a good-natured gentle smile. “I wouldn’t want to feel like I could be lazy. It’ll be nice to have some genuine competition for the scholarships and class placements.”

Katara appraises him out of the corner of her eye. “I think you’ll make a splendid lawyer,” she says kindly. The back of his neck turns pink and he doesn’t quite look her way.

“Thank you.”

It’s interesting, she thinks, how easy it is for her to mean such a kind statement when a few short months ago a compliment towards Zuko would have been unfathomable to her closed mind. How strange to think what such a short amount of time could do to change her opinion of a person!

* * *

On a Friday morning a few weeks later, Katara walks into town to pick up her new clothes from the seamstress. The weather is exceptional and she takes her time on her journey, relishing in the lovely greenness of summer, gravel crunching under her boots and flowers fluttering in the breeze. Her last days on Kyoshi Island are dwindling rapidly and she can almost pick up on the distinct autumnal nip that will soon grace the air. To think that she will soon only come home on select weekends and for holidays almost makes her feel like a stranger to the very place she grew up. Rather than walking through pines and alongside streams that lead ever to the ocean, she will soon be learning the walks of Ba Sing Se Academy and finding the best willows under which to read and study.

“It would be a ghastly feeling,” she tells Mrs. Lin while she peruses items in Mr. Lin’s shop, “if it weren’t for the fact that I’ll have Suki with me and we’ll be learning all manner of new and exciting things together!”

Mrs. Lin, eyeing the abundance of small packages in Katara’s arms and the delicate shelf of trinkets she’s looking over, hurries forward to gather the bundle of things from the girl.

“I’ll put these aside for you while you shop,” she says not unkindly but still rather nervously.

“Thank you,” Katara says. “I’m looking for a gift for Ty Lee. Though I’m sure you know that given that Suki was invited to her party as well.”

There are all manner of interesting things in the Lins’ shop. Katara dawdles for a while over a selection of crystal figurines that glitter in the sunlight streaming through the windows. It is easy to be drawn to glitzy things when thinking of Ty Lee. She has a delightful personality that sparkles much like the little crystal catowls that line the shelves. Still, Katara presses on in her search, eventually settling on a lovely fan painted over with pink cherry blossoms. In true Katara fashion, it is a practical gift that she knows will appeal to her friend’s love of pink.

As she packages the fan, Mrs. Lin casts an appraising eye at the array of things Katara must carry home.

“Did your grandmother drive into town with you today, dear?”

“Gran Gran said she was expecting a friend,” Katara says, making her payment. “And it’s such a lovely day that I elected to walk.”

“It’s a long way home,” Mrs. Lin replies. “Can I lend you a basket for your packages?”

“That’s alright.” Katara gives her best winning smile. “I’ll manage. There’s nothing in these that’s fragile enough to break if I drop them anyway!”

Looking somewhat trepidatious, Mrs. Lin watches Katara gather her abundance of brown paper packages and bids her farewell, holding open the door of the shop so that she can make her exit. Katara steps into the street, bidding the other denizens of the island good morning and weaving her way somewhat clumsily through the little crowds that have gathered.

She’s nearly at the edge of town when a fine black buggy pulls to a halt next to her and she finds herself looking up into the bright golden eyes of Zuko Himura. He doffs his hat and casts her one of his trademark half-smiles.

“Can I offer you a ride?” he asks. “You look rather bogged down.”

“Thank you. I’m quite alright,” Katara says.

As if to prove her wrong, two packages fall off the top of her precarious pile, flopping into the dirt of the road and kicking up plumes of dust. She presses her lips into a firm line, embarrassment and annoyance coloring her cheeks pink. When she looks back at Zuko, his eyes are shining with smothered laughter.

“Be nice, Zuko Himura,” she says indignantly.

“I think you’ll find I’m being exceptionally nice,” he bites back. “I’ve offered you a ride.”

“It’s not a very long walk back home.”

“Ah, but do you really want to make it while stopping to pick up packages left and right?”

Katara hesitates. She can feel the eyes of curious islanders who are watching the exchange from a distance. If she denies such a genial offer, word will get back to Gran Gran and she’ll be subject to a lecture about manners. Not to mention the fact that she’d told Zuko they could be friends.

She sighs.

“Alright. But I’m not agreeing because I’m incapable.”

“I would never dream of implying that you were,” Zuko says.

He hops lithely out of the buggy, unfolding tall and lean. Already tall when they’d first met, Katara can’t help but feel that Zuko has grown like a weed, especially over the course of the summer. He stood half a head taller than Sokka now and Sokka was already a rather gangly boy himself. They both left her feeling rather short and round like Gran Gran.

After settling Katara’s packages onto the floorboards, Zuko offers the girl a hand up into the buggy, a gesture she accepts with as little hand contact as possible. Despite how quick she is to climb into the buggy, Zuko’s palm still leaves a warm, lingering impression on her own. She shoves the memory of it from her mind as he climbs up next to her and urges the ostrich-horse down the road.

“Mai tells me that Ty Lee is having a party tomorrow,” he says after a stretch of silence that lingers too long.

Katara, who had, up until this point, allowed herself to hope that Mai might find herself too preoccupied with other things like being a Xu and engaging in Xu-ish endeavours to attend the party, scowls deeply. It was a foolish dream given that Mai and Ty Lee were bosom friends, but Katara had dreamt it nonetheless.

“Yes, “ she says stiffly. “Suki and I have been invited as well. The three of us are to stay the night.”

“I suppose that sounds fun.”

“Certainly. If you like everyone you have to spend all that time with.”

Zuko makes a peculiar sound. “You really don’t like Mai, do you?” he asks.

“I like Mai just as much as she likes me,” Katara says. She pins Zuko with a withering glare that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on him. “The Xus are all impossible to please and care for none but their own, I hope you know that.”

“Uncle often says that they are a particular people.”

“You should listen to him.”

“She seems nice enough to me.”

Indignant, Katara harrumphs and has to resist tossing her nose in the air. The thought of anyone finding a Xu  _ nice enough _ ! Preposterous! It only went to show how different Zuko was from their island-born peers.  _ Everyone _ knew how terrible the Xus were!

His kind estimation of Mai is enough to make Katara frosty for the rest of the journey home. She sits, hands clasped firmly in her lap, with hardly a word to say. By the time the blue gabled peaks of the Narvak place are within throwing distance, Zuko has caught on to Katara’s mood and looks nearly as angry as she and a good deal more confounded by her mercurial demeanor towards him. He bids her goodbye at the gate without looking her way and snaps the reins so that the ostrich-horse takes off like a bolt of lightning once she has stepped away from the buggy’s wheels. His ire stirs hers up and she storms into the house to find Gran Gran and Sokka staring at her with wide eyes.

“Was that Iroh’s boy?” Gran Gran asks, squinting at the disappearing buggy.

“Yes,” Katara says coldly. She points a finger at Sokka. “You can have your friend. I’m done with his fickle attitudes!”

On quick, angry feet, Katara storms up the stairs and into her room where she sets about tearing into her many packages. Thus, Gran Gran finds her a few minutes later, red-faced and admiring her fine new garments, a perturbed pout on her lips.

“Would you like to talk about it?” the elderly woman queries.

“There is nothing to discuss,” Katara says.

“That hardly seems to be the case, dear girl.” Gran Gran sits on Katara’s bed and picks up one of the smart new jackets made up by the seamstress, looking it over with critical eyes. “You and Zuko Himura have been getting along famously for weeks now. It seems odd that you should fly into such a rage over nothing.”

Katara sniffs proudly. “It  _ is _ nothing, Gran Gran. Only that he’s gone and shown his true colors.”

Gran Gran arches an eyebrow.

“He said that he thinks Mai Xu seems perfectly nice.”

A smile twitches at the elderly woman’s lips that her granddaughter doesn’t notice. “Are you envious of his esteem for Mai?” she asks.

“Oh,  _ hardly _ ,” Katara snorts. “It just seems foolish to me that anyone could find a Xu  _ remotely _ tolerable.”

“You yourself have admitted to being fond of Tom Tom on multiple occasions.”

“Yes, but he’s so small. He’s not a Xu yet,” Katara reasons. “Not really. Mai  _ is _ . She is Xu through and through, Gran Gran. It’s unendurable.”

“So you’re angry with Zuko because he dared to have a different opinion than you on one of your classmates?” Gran Gran says. “That seems to me to be quite a silly reason to be mad at a friend. Especially when you seem to have been valuing his differing opinions on things. Would you be mad at Suki were she to express a different opinion from you?”

The younger woman purses her lips, stubborn refusal to admit her error forbidding words from leaving her mouth.

Gran Gran lets out a little hum like she knows she’s hit the nail on the head. “That’s what I thought,” she says. “You aren’t mad at that boy, not really.”

Then she pats Katara on the shoulder and leaves the room, leaving the girl to wonder—if she isn’t mad about Zuko’s opinion on Mai, then what  _ is _ she?

* * *

Despite her sour thoughts on Zuko’s opinion of Mai and the fact that she does not want to spend an extended amount of time in the other girl’s presence, Katara finds herself enjoying most of Ty Lee’s small party. The Yoshidas have permitted Suki to bring Toph along and the younger girl brings an added element of chaotic fun that otherwise would not have existed. In the company of Suki, Toph, and the few Yoshida sisters that remain in the house, Katara finds herself rather pleased with how the evening turns out.

There is a big dinner with roast chickenpig and dessert is a veritable feast in and of itself with delectable custards, chocolate studded cookies, and a cake topped with fluffy, snow white frosting. As such, when Mrs. Yoshida calls for lights out, none of the girls are tired enough to sleep. The five of them crowd into Ty Lee’s room and burn the lamp oil far later than ever before, discussing their hopes for Ba Sing Se Academy and allowing their hostess to practice the latest hairstyles on them, a copy of Gibson’s illustrations close at hand.

“Katara, your hair is just  _ perfect _ for this,” Ty Lee sighs as she works long brown curls into a softly swirling pompadour. “You’ll never have to use hair rats like the rest of us. Doesn’t it just make you envious, girls?”

At this moment, Katara makes the mistake of accidentally making eye contact with Mai in the reflection of the mirror. The other girl scowls deeply. Ty Lee had toiled over her hair for quite a while, but even the strongest hairpins seemed to have a difficult time containing Mai’s sleek, flawlessly straight tresses.

“Perfect hair can be achieved without looking homespun,” she sneers. “At least I’ll always be able to afford to have my hair done.”

Ty Lee’s hands falter in Katara’s hair. “Oh, Mai,” she whispers. “There’s no need to be  _ mean _ .”

“I for one think we all look  _ spectacular _ ,” Toph interjects.

On the verge of thanking the tiny terror, Katara catches herself with a secret smile exchanged with Suki. It’s Toph’s favorite prank and they’ve quickly caught on. The same cannot be said for Mai who takes the sarcasm seriously and thanks her with a high-held chin. Katara has to work even harder to hold back her laughter at that, smothering giggles behind her hand while Suki grabs for the cherry blossom fan and does the same.

“I do like this fan,” Suki says when her shoulders have stopped shaking with silent laughter. “Perhaps I’ll ask Mother and Father to invest in some for me before we leave for the academy.”

“My eldest sister says they’re the perfect tool for flirting with boys,” Ty Lee says.

“Or hitting your older brother over the head when he’s annoying you,” Katara muses.

“Who cares about flirting with boys?” Toph says. She picks at her teeth as she speaks, spurring Mai into moving across the room from her as though her bad manners might be contagious. “I’ll have to take you ladies to see the  _ real _ entertainment in Ba Sing Se when you all get there.” She pauses to consider her words, her frosty eyes somehow locating Mai. “Maybe. I haven’t decided on some of you yet.”

“I’m not sure Ty Lee wants to sneak out of the house to see boxing matches in the lower ring, Toph,” Suki says.

“Oh, I would do that!” Ty Lee makes one final tweak to Katara’s mass of hair and then turns to her other friend.

“Why do I have a feeling her motivations are not entertainment oriented?” Toph mutters to Katara. Louder, she addresses Ty Lee with, “I’m not certain you’d like the boys you’ll meet at a boxing match, Stretch. They’re nothing like these goody-goody island boys.”

“Not all island boys are goody-goodies,” Katara says, thinking of Sokka’s poor manners and Zuko’s even poorer temper.

Mai rolls her eyes. “Well, we all know you think you’re above the boys of Kyoshi Island, Katara, so that’s no surprise,” she snaps.

“I don’t think that!” Katara cries, whirling around to face the other girl.

“If that’s the case,” Mai says, arching an eyebrow, “name one boy you fancy.”

Katara feels the entire upper portion of her body color, from her chest all the way up to her scalp. She freezes, incapable of thinking of even one name save one. Her cheeks only grow hotter when his autumn eyes flash through her mind, entirely unbidden. The longer she remains silent, the smugger Mai begins to look, her tawny eyes narrowing and a smirk of triumph tugging at her thin lips.

Ty Lee, clearly thinking she’s coming to the blue-eyed girl’s rescue, says, “Yesterday, I was in town and I saw you accept a ride home from Zuko Himura.”

Mai’s smirk vanishes in the blink of an eye. All of the color leaves Katara’s face, leaving her feeling lightheaded and almost ill. Suki looks from Katara to Mai, her serious eyes more solemn than ever.

“I don’t… I don’t  _ fancy _ Zuko,” Katara manages to choke out. Her heart pounds loud and hard in her chest. “He’s a  _ chum _ .”

Whatever buoyancy had lingered in the atmosphere after Ty Lee’s luxurious birthday dinner vanishes in the aftermath of Katara’s denial. Even Toph, who would normally be relishing in the discomfort of the moment, is quick to agree when Ty Lee suggests that perhaps it  _ is _ time to put the light out.

The girls dress for bed in relative silence. Katara can feel Suki’s sympathetic glances and does her best to ignore them as they and Toph crowd into the spare bed in Ty Lee’s room that had once belonged to another sister. And while sleep seems to take the others with quick ease, Katara lays awake longer into the night, Toph’s toes digging into her ribs, mortification and stubborn denial her only comfortless company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is still out there and enjoying this fic, I'd love to hear from you! Your love and positivity mean the world! xx


	8. An Academy Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some brother-sister bonding and some Zutara drama. God, I love those two.

The end of summer comes along quietly and autumn creeps in on the feet of foggy mornings and yellowing leaves. Katara and her peers pack their belongings and prepare for their departure to Ba Sing Se Academy in drafty homes. Childhoods are left behind in cabinets and trunks. Lazy days with Toph and Suki on the shores of Shimmering Shoals dwindle into nonexistence.

One the eve of her departure, Katara finds herself restlessly wandering her hidden haunts on Kyoshi Island, traversing the piney forests, watching the moon rise from a seaside bluff, and, at last, stealing into the cemetery for one last visit with her mother before the ferry leaves in the morning. She sits alone, under the light of the moon, her fingers trailing through dewy grass and her heart feeling very much as though it will refuse to leave for the academy with her. Though Gran Gran, Father, and Sokka will all see her off at the train station in the morning and Suki will be making the journey with her, the moment has not come with boundless excitement but rather a hollow loneliness. Mother is missing from yet another chapter in Katara’s life. This will never change. Forevermore, Katara must journey through life without seeing pride in Mother’s gentle blue eyes or hearing her soft words of encouragement. While Father and Gran Gran try hard, there is truly no filling that hole.

Sokka finds her there, sorrow spilling down her cheeks, arms hugging her knees. He joins her, slipping an arm around her shoulders, their backs pressed to Kaya’s headstone. Katara curls into him, breathing in all that is her big brother and wishing not for the first time that she didn’t have to part with him on the road of life quite so soon. Perhaps the hole in her soul would not have been filled if he’d chosen to attend the academy, but his presence would have been a balm to the wound.

“She would be so proud of you, Katara,” Sokka says. His voice is soft, as though speaking too loud will awaken the spirits in the graveyard.

“Do you suppose this feeling will ever go away?” Katara asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just learn to live with it.” He sniffs and his hand tightens on Katara’s shoulder. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“Sometimes I… Sometimes I  _ love _ missing her. It’s so much better than feeling nothing at all. And it helps me remember her.”

Katara pulls away just in time to catch her brother scrubbing his free hand over his face, wiping away the tears he doesn’t want her to see. He keeps his eyes fixed on the moon where it hangs overhead, full and heavy.

“Do you ever worry,” he asks, “that if the sadness left, all our memories of her would go with it?”

“No,” Katara replies. “I worry that all my memories of her will leave me on their own and I’ll be left with nothing but this strange, hollow feeling that’s been with me since she died.”

For a long moment, the only sound is the shallow whisper of wind-songs in the pines as the western winds slip over and across Kyoshi Island. Were it not for the brightness of the moon, the first glimpses of autumn’s auroras would be visible, the swaths of pastel pinks and blues shivering through the air. Instead, the siblings sit side by side in the cemetery, their faces thrown into a ghostly pallor by the light of the moon and the shadows from the trees.

“Do you remember that summer when we went fishing?” Sokka asks at last. “And Mother managed to reel in that massive fish?”

Laughter bubbles up out of Katara’s chest, watery with lingering tears. “Father thought it was dead when he took hold of it, but then it gave a sudden flop and he and the fish—”

“—Both went into the water!” Sokka finishes at the same time.

Katara sighs. “I miss doing schoolwork at the kitchen table while she made dinner,” she admits.

“She would pack notes in my lunch pail on days we had exams.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I guess it was kind of our secret. She knew I was always nervous on those days.”

“Oh.” Katara stares down at her hands where they are clasped in her lap, wondering how she never knew. “Mother was good at keeping secrets, I suppose.”

“Katara, I know I could never fill her shoes, but… You do know that I’m here for whatever you need, don’t you?”

“I do, Sokka.”

They sit until the chill from the sea winds and the dewy grass begins to set in. Then, they gather themselves and their raw emotions and head for home. At the gate of the cemetery, they pause and look back to where their mother rests beneath the grass.

“Will you come to see her when I can’t?” Katara asks her brother quietly.

Sokka’s hand finds her shoulder and gives a reassuring squeeze. “I promise,” he intones.

* * *

The following morning, Katara, Suki, and Toph (who sulks the entire time about returning home to her parents) board the ferry to the mainland with Gran Gran, Hakoda, Sokka, and Mrs. Lin. Their little group is a scene of weeping eyes and fierce embraces. When the train whistle blows, Katara, Toph, and Suki are forced to fight their way out of a loving, clinging group hug so that they don’t get left behind. They board the train with haste and throw themselves into the first available compartment where they open the window and toss out goodbyes to their loved ones who wave with tremulous smiles and handkerchiefs pressed beneath eyes.

Katara tries to memorize them all as they stand there. Father in his work shirt, prepared for a day on the farm, one large palm resting on Sokka’s shoulder, the other on Gran Gran’s, pride shining in his blue eyes. Mrs. Lin stands next to him, her vibrant auburn hair glossy and smooth in the early autumn sunshine as she shouts the depth of her love and pride for Suki. The wrinkles around Gran Gran’s lips pull taut with her smile, seeming to stretch into invisibility. Her wave is solemn and short, but she presses her fingers to her mouth afterward.

Sokka is the last one Katara really remembers seeing before the train begins moving too fast for his face to be anything but a blur. He shouts, “Good luck!” and then makes an ‘X’ over his heart, his eyes locked with his sister’s, last night’s promise another steely thread in their unbreakable bond.

And though Mother is missing from that little grouping on the platform, Katara swears she can  _ feel _ her in the wind that rustles her hair loose from its meticulous braid, feels the way her mother’s love filled up her soul. When she turns to smile at Suki, it’s radiant and hopeful. She grapples for her dearest friend’s hand, squeezing it with all her might. Suki returns the gesture, the fingers of her free hand wrapped around the locket at her throat, her own smile just as beatific.

Toph grouses for the entire first half of the train ride about returning home, her arms folded over her chest and her filmy eyes cast aside. She is especially reticent towards Suki and Katara, the latter of whom is confounded and unsure of how to confront the situation. Suki handles it masterfully, though, shifting over to sit next to her cousin with an ease of grace and fluidity. Her hand finds the younger girl’s shoulder and squeezes.

“I’m sorry that you’re having to give up your freedom, Toph.”

Toph shrugs, shifting away from Suki. “At least I had one summer,” she says offhandedly.

“Maybe you can have another.”

Though she doesn’t say anything, Toph’s face turns infinitesimally towards Suki and the frown on her pixie face eases a fraction.

“I know how Lao and Poppy’s worries stifle you. Perhaps I can spend this year reassuring them that time with my family is a good thing for you. I think there’s a chance I can help them see that allowing you to travel with me next summer would be beneficial.”

“You would do that?”

“Of course! We loved having you, didn’t we, Katara?”

“We did,” Katara agrees.

Toph’s eyes find her with unnerving accuracy. “Even when I almost killed you?” she asks. The corner of her mouth jumps as though she’s trying to hold back a smirk.

“I think we all were at fault,” Katara says. “But we  _ did _ love getting to know you. And I’m sure Mr. Sozin would be sad not to see you again.”

“Gramps,” Toph says fondly. “Yes. I would like to spend some more time with him. He’s a good man.” And then she sighs deeply. “There’s still an eternity to get through until next summer. My parents will be insufferable.”

“Suki and I can share our studies with you!”

“How?” Toph deadpans, almost daring Katara to fumble her words, but Katara doesn’t.

“We’ll read aloud to you. It will help us study. And you’ll learn all manner of things! History and science and mathematics. All of the things your parents think you’re too delicate to comprehend.”

There is a long moment where Toph considers what Suki and Katara are offering. When a smile begins to curl at her lips, the older girls exchange looks of triumph.

“I thought Gramps might be my favorite person,” Toph says, “but I may just be more fond of the two of you.”

The rest of the journey passes without incident, but as soon as the train pulls to a stop and passengers begin disembarking, Toph seems to shrink in on herself and grow smaller. Her hesitancy to step off the train is palpable, shivering through the air. So Katara and Suki link their arms through hers, a silent offer of solidarity that seems to bolster the young girl as they maneuver off the train and through the station.

Lao is waiting with Poppy this time. They scoop Toph into a suffocating embrace and shower her with attention that she attempts to shove away from for several long minutes before finally turning to greet Katara and Suki. The older girls are seemingly an afterthought the entire journey to the Beifong estate. Unbothered by this, they gaze out the rear windows of the ostrich-horse-drawn streetcar, eyes wide and fixed on the shimmering sights of the inner ring. From the golden-tiled roofs to the glamorous willows whose branches sweep the sidewalks, there is nothing that does not incite excitement.

“Katara, look!” Suki says in a hushed voice, pointing down a shady boulevard. “We’ll be walking that route every day from Monday onward!”

The scholarly spires of Ba Sing Se Academy rise above the trees, its bell tower chiming the midafternoon hour. Katara’s heart flutters in her chest, anticipation churning through her veins. Come Monday morn, she will at last be an Academy girl! Her castle in the sky comes further into focus, its edges sharpening and its colors vibrantly glimmering in her mind’s eye. All that she has dreamed of and wished for begins now! How delightful!

Monday morning, though, does not dawn in the way she and Suki had anticipated. In their finest dresses, hair neatly braided, hats pinned down, they walk down the shady, fashionable avenues to Ba Sing Se Academy, feeling rightfully grown up and worldly. The grassy campus of the school is teeming with boys and girls who are all in various states of delight. Katara catches a glimpse of Zuko standing beneath a tree, a satchel in his grip, a crisp white shirt and soft sweater vest stretched across his torso. Her swooping heart (nerves at seeing him, she’s certain, they haven’t spoken since that fateful drive home after all) takes a sudden, jarring descent when he shifts and his new stance reveals Mai Xu who looks infinitely more fashionable than Katara in her island seamstress-made clothes could ever hope to be.

She shoves those feelings aside, though, and loops her arm through Suki’s, head held high as they navigate the walks of the Academy. It will not do to dwell on something so silly when she has the whole of her life laid out before her.

“Suki! Katara!” Ty Lee’s voice calls to them from across the quad before she comes barreling toward them, a blur of taffy and ballet pinks waving several pieces of paper in her hand. Pretty and vibrant as ever, her journey towards her friends attracts a myriad of looks from their peers.

“I’ve our schedules here,” she continues, breathless upon reaching them. “Shall we compare?”

This is how, in the middle of what she’d hoped would be a delightful first morning, Katara comes to learn that she will not be in classes with Suki and Ty Lee at all. Her schedule is entirely at odds with both of theirs.

“Oh no!” Suki exclaims. “I thought for sure we would be in classes together. We’re all taking the course in one year rather than two after all!”

Preeminent loneliness swallows Katara’s heart whole once more. “At least we have the same teachers,” she offers half-heartedly. “We’ll be able to keep up on our work and studies together.”

“That  _ is _ a silver lining!” Ty Lee cheers.

She and Suki each press a kiss to Katara’s cheek before parting ways. Feeling entirely out of place and out of her depth, Katara swallows down her fears and soldiers on as the bell for the first class of the day rings. If this is the start of her great journey, then she will not be bogged down by feeling blue.

The classroom is already crammed with students jostling for seats. In the chaos, Katara is shoved none too gently into someone who smells somewhat familiar.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, scrambling to maintain her hold on her books and schedule. When she looks up, her gaze locks with familiar honey gold eyes, the one twisted by a scar. Relief washes over her and she feels a brilliant grin break across her face. The loneliness fades in half a wink. “Zuko!”

Said boy blinks at her, his face unreadable. He takes a breath as though he might say something, then seems to think twice, shaking his head before he walks away, claiming a seat as far away from her as he can possibly get.

Somehow, Zuko’s refusal to acknowledge Katara is more horrible than having to watch Suki and Ty Lee as they walked off to class together. She finds a seat on the opposite side of the room, numb and trying not to let her gaze seek out the back of his head. He doesn’t look at her again. Not once during that class or the myriad of others they share after. It seems he is perfectly content to meet as strangers.

“Katara,” Suki says later that night as they prepare for bed in the Beifongs’ spare room. Her voice has taken on the tentative, gentle quality one does when they know their conversational partner will be unhappy with the direction of the dialogue. “What happened with you and Zuko?”

From her position on the window seat, Katara sighs. Outside the window, the back garden of the Beifong estate is held under the moon’s sway, flowers glimmering bright under the moonlight and swaths of grass thrown into shadow. Toph is a spectral-white figure winking in and out between bushes and trees, her long nightgown trailing in the grass, her slippers dangling from her fingers. It is as much freedom as she dares take so soon after returning home. Poppy and Lao are much more present now that they know they left enough of a hole for her to run away.

“What do you mean, Suki?” Katara says resignedly.

“Well… I thought the two of you had finally decided to be friends this summer. But Ty Lee told me today that he told her he’s resolved not to speak to you.”

Though her heart had already taken up a new home somewhere near her toes, it manages to sink even further, seeming to alienate itself from Katara’s body altogether.

“I suppose we were quite good friends for a few weeks,” she says.

“Now you aren’t?”

“I don’t know. I…” Katara groans, frustrated. “There was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“What about?” Suki presses.

Even after much soul searching after her talk with Gran Gran, Katara is still at a loss for what happened. “I’m not certain,” she tells Suki.

“Well,” Suki replies pragmatically, “I do hope you can find a way to remedy the situation. He’s quite nice and social gatherings may be awkward if the two of you aren’t at least civil.”

“Why must  _ I _ be the one to fix this?!”

Suki pins Katara with a bemused stare. “Because Zuko would have tried already if this had been his fault.”

“It  _ is _ his fault.”

“ _ Fix it _ .”

But Katara doesn’t know how to fix it. Somehow she’d missed out on some undercurrent of meaning in that fateful argument with Zuko and still cannot grasp what would make him so angry with her. Therefore, they are destined to continue on through their first semester at Ba Sing Se Academy while never sparing one another so much as a glance or exchanging a  _ good morning _ .

* * *

Train tickets home to Kyoshi Island from Ba Sing Se are not cheap, so several weeks pass before Suki and Katara are at last able to travel home to see their families. Toph is abominably grumpy towards them for the entire week leading up to their departure. She refuses to even ask if she can see them off at the train station with her father and doesn’t bid them farewell before they leave.

“She’ll be over it by the time we return,” Suki mutters to Katara. “She’ll be our dearest chum and ask to hear all of our math lessons once more.”

They cross paths with Ty Lee, Mai, and Zuko on the train. As usual, Ty Lee is all effervescence and ebullience, though her counterparts are taciturn and sour, looking almost bored.

“I don’t know how you aren’t excited to go home, Mai,” Ty Lee pouts.

“I make this journey every weekend,” Mai says, turning her nose up. “My parents can afford it. And it’s terribly dull. Who wants to spend time on poky Kyoshi Island when we have the entire city of Ba Sing Se at our disposal?”

Her attitude about the situation paired with her comment about her parents’ wealth creates a fissure in the conversation. Ty Lee grows silent and fixes her eyes on her hands. Even Zuko looks mildly upset by what Mai has said.

Sensing the tension, Katara and Suki make their excuses and turn to leave. Katara does pause for one moment, though, drawing Ty Lee into a fierce embrace.

“We’ll see you when we disembark,” she whispers in her friend’s ear. When she pulls away, Ty Lee’s eyes have lit up.

“Did I tell you who’s meeting me at the dock to walk me home?”

“No.” Katara is confused. Are she and Suki supposed to have arranged for someone to walk home with them?

“Oh, you’re just going to  _ die _ when you see!”

Friday night has begun its descent upon Kyoshi Island by the time the ferry makes port, the sky cast in ribbons of violet and navy. Katara is delighted to see Sokka waving as the gangplank is lowered. He is accompanied by a handsome youth with a moustache much like Lao Beifong’s.

“Is that Haru?” Katara mutters to Suki. “Wasn’t he courting one of Ty Lee’s sisters not long ago?”

They exchange a look and Suki shrugs.

To Katara’s astonishment, the first thing Sokka does is hug Suki rather than his own sister. Bewildered, the brunette lingers in the background and watches as Ty Lee and Haru set off down the road arm in arm. When Sokka finally does turn to hug Katara, she feels oddly as though she has lost some part of her brother and is now embracing someone who is half stranger. Over his shoulder, she mistakenly catches Zuko’s eye. He blinks at her, as stoic as he has been since that first day at the Academy. Then, Mai swoops into view, tugging the golden-eyed boy forward so that he might accompany her down the darkening roads. It takes a few paces before he breaks eye contact with Katara. When he does so, Katara feels something inside of her pull and unravel. It is unsettling, as though pieces of her are heading in a direction that is decidedly the opposite of her castle in the sky, commanded by the currents of Zuko’s own path in life.

Katara is left to wander behind her brother and her dearest friend, both of whom seem to very nearly forget that she is there as their laughter and chatter floats up into the darkening sky. She sulks as she trudges along behind them, dwelling on how easily Zuko had allowed Mai to sweep him away. He hasn’t said one kind word to her in months, has never spared her so much as a glance during their shared classes, and now he is openly spending time with a Xu? Well, if that’s the way he insists on acting, then Katara has no problems justifying the steel that enters her heart against him! His willful ignorance has wounded her and rent apart the chasm between them even further.

Her mood lifts, though, as the lights of home slowly flicker into view. The aromas of a late dinner waft through the air, delectable and savory, eliciting ravenous rumbles from Katara’s stomach. Father and Gran Gran are waiting at the gate and Suki’s parents and sisters in the yard. Here there is love and acceptance and arms for comforting hugs. Gran Gran marvels how Katara has grown in the weeks she’s been gone and Father presses a kiss to the crown of her head before whispering, “You look more your mother’s daughter than ever before, koalaotter.”

Dinner is a mass of chaotic conversations and elbowing for second helpings. The group is so large that they have to eat in the parlor, plates balanced on laps, Suki’s youngest sisters nearly spilling their drinks every other minute. Katara forgets about Zuko and Mai and Sokka and Suki for the evening as she gazes around at those who love her as they boisterously interact. Though her aspirations will one day take her far from home, across the sandy beaches of the Fire Nation or to the poles, for now she is home and her heart is full of gratitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://evergreenonthehorizon.tumblr.com) now. Drop me a line there or here! xx


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